The Mask Within
by SGCbearcub
Summary: Spuffy/Post S7:BVS/S5:A She'd thought he was dead. He thought she was someone else. Wolfram and Hart thought they had the advantage. Boy...were they wrong.
1. Chapter 1

**Author Notes:**

**Spoilers: Set post-Chosen(S7 Buffy) and post-Not Fade Away (S5 Angel). Inspired by and borrowing some elements of the graphic novels I've seen talked about by other authors. But I haven't read the novels, so I can't claim to any accuracy.**

**This little plot bunny attacked - er - escaped -uhm - was _inspired_ by several fics over on Bloodshedverse. Namely, Spike chipped again, Buffy saves him. Sort of a detour from a novel length Spuffy fic that's taken over my life.**

**Posting on my other fics should (hopefully) resume in a couple months. The problem is the language you see. Everything I write lately sounds like I'm trying to write for Buffy. Which is ironic, because I'm not completely convinced my Buffy fics sounds like I'm writing for Buffy...**

**WARNING!!! Sex, gore, biting, and implied male rape (previous to story events). Oh, and angst. Because apparently I can't help myself. **

* * *

"Christos!"

The tall, dark-haired woman sitting elegantly on a bar-stool eyed her current business associate with amusement. After breathing that soft curse, the Immortal began to swear vehemently in Italian as he took in the blood-soaked scene. Even she, who had instigated many a massacre, was taken aback by the brutality of this one. Then again, most of her massacres had taken place in the boardroom.

She wasn't even certain it would be possible to count all the bodies.

Leather-clad dominants, naked submissive, silk-clad whores, and a few onlookers - who'd probably been wearing Armani - were scattered about the warehouse looking like they'd been run through a giant wood chipper. Arms and other body parts dangled from hooks and chandeliers. Thrown with such force they had been impaled by whatever intercepted their trajectory. Blood coated the floor like a gelatinous carpet, thick and sticky where it pooled.

She mentally added a new pair of shoes to her expense account.

The Immortal was still cursing, stomping past dead clients and kicking body parts out of his way.

"You said you wanted him broken in, Stephano," Lilah said dryly, making sure her amusement was audible in her voice.

Spike glared at them balefully, dangling from the chains the clean-up squad had used to contain him. According to the technicians, the facial twitching was a result of constant low-grade pain being delivered by his new chip. The supposedly improved chip Wolfram and Hart had contracted to have secretly installed when his old chip was removed, and activated after that fiasco of a last stand.

"I think he's broken," she said, less amused.

The Immortal stopped cursing and glared at the vampire who'd single-handedly destroyed a very illegal, very profitable sex club for criminal deviants.

"This is not what was supposed to happen," he stated furiously. "I can do nothing with this...this..."

His hand swept out to take in the vampire, the blood, and the bodies.

She had to admit, she was glad it wasn't her mess to clean up. The sex club had been fitted with reinforced steel doors, concrete walls, and bullet-proof windows. All woven together with the best magical enhancements money could buy. No one had gotten out. It had taken the response team three hours to cut into the building and by that time, everyone was dead. The enraged vampire had not discriminated. Slaves had been pulled from their cages - without benefit of a door. Bartenders, waitresses, even the dancers - all of them torn apart.

She wasn't even sure he had fed, beyond what he had needed to heal.

Not, Lilah thought distastefully, that she blamed him. The clients here had been rapists of the worst sort. Those who liked to hear a victim scream. Too bad the dying tended to spoil their fun. They would have been overjoyed to have a vampire at their mercy, and instructions to break him. Although given the file on this particular vampire, she was surprised at _how_ he'd broken. She'd have suspected Angelus of this sort of mayhem first. Spike had always struck her as more...

...submissive.

Curious now, she ignored the sticky footing and made her way to the captive demon. It had taken three tranquilizer darts to subdue him and another to get him into the spell-forged chains. She had to admit, she was reluctantly impressed.

"Truthfully," she said, as she came abreast of the vampire, "I didn't think you had it in you."

He glared at her, but not with any noticeable shift in attitude. She leaned in slightly, widening her eyes.

"Buffy," she said gleefully, fluttering her fingers at him.

No reaction.

Well, he growled, but he was doing that anyway.

"Angel," she tried. "Drusilla?"

"What do you do?" the Immortal demanded.

She turned her head slightly to see him watching her, clearly puzzled.

She sighed with exaggerated patience. "I'm trying to see if he has any working brain cells left."

The Immortal scowled. "Does he?"

She grimaced. "Not that I can see."

The technician beside her eyed her uncertainly. "Actually, the damage appears minimal. The chip is causing some recurrent swelling, but nothing serious."

He flushed as she arched an eyebrow, then looked significantly at the vampire in question.

"We're not sure why it's firing like that," the technician mumbled.

She snorted. "Well...Bob," she said, after a contemptuous glance at his name tag, "I'm fairly certain it's because someone fucked him up the ass - causing him a great deal of pain while doing it." She leaned toward the red-faced technician as if imparting a secret. "That tends to piss people off."

The technician flushed even brighter. "Yes, Ma'am. That's not what I mean, Ma'am. It's just..." he waved the portable computer in his hand, "he shouldn't even be on his feet. We've had to dial back the sensitivity of the chip as far as it will go and it's still going off. We've reduced the pain setting, but it's firing constantly. If he was human, he'd be dead."

"He's already dead," she shot back. "And if he was human, we couldn't have installed one. Or have you forgotten we are paying you to solve that little design flaw?"

The technician opened his mouth, then closed it, uncertain if he should have an answer.

Lilah growled. "We can't send him to the Slayer like this. They're not supposed to know he has a chip - or did you forget to read that part of the project file too?"

Bob flushed.

The Immortal started to smile.

"If we cannot sell him for sex," Stephano said, "then we sell the violence, yes?"

Lilah frowned, unwilling to admit she didn't know what he was talking about.

"The fights, Bella," the Immortal said expansively. "We put him in the Pit. Until the chip is fixed."

Lilah eyed Spike dubiously. "He's a bit on the small side."

Pit fighters were the most aggressive, least human of their demon slaves. She wasn't sure Spike would survive the common areas, let alone the arena. Still, this screw-up had been expensive - in more ways than one. The firm had lost a lot of good-paying clients last night and the quarterly statements were more important than a speculative project. A couple good fights, a couple good wins, and the betting might balance this little fiasco.

They could still return him to the Slayer if he survived.

"Fine," she said. "But make no mistake, Stephano. You owe us. Don't put him at any more risk than necessary."

She turned away from the disaster chained to ruins of a once profitable business and headed for the door.

"We're making lemonade, gentlemen," she said bluntly, "if I have to kill all of you to do it."


	2. Chapter 2

The van was clearly designed to transport demons.

Unfortunately for her, it had been designed to transport larger and nastier demons than the pissed off Slayer currently trying not to throw up as the van hit every pothole between wherever they were and wherever they were going. Buffy decided L.A. had lousy street maintenance.

Bad Guy Number One - otherwise known as Soon-To-Be-Dead if she ever got loose - grinned at her, far too smugly.

"I capture a slayer, yes? You did not even suspect. "

His self-congratulation was annoying.

"You work for Stephano, you moron. Why would I suspect anything?"

Buffy wondered what he'd do if he realized exactly which slayer he had shot full of tranquilizers and stuffed into the back of the van. Panic would be a good look for him. Of course, the girl Stephano had been dating was actually an undercover slayer named Julia, made up by surgery and magic to walk, talk, and shop 'til she dropped. And going under the covers? So not part of the original plan. Buffy had been deep in the jungle dismembering demons when that change occurred.

The man she had thought was the Immortal's accountant - who probably was the Immortal's accountant - leaned forward and back-handed her. She snorted and he flushed ugly.

"You..." the accountant spit out, "you will respect him. He is the Immortal to trash like you. You do not speak his name."

Buffy doubted he could hit her hard enough to bruise her, but if he did, the glamour she wore would adapt to show any underlying wounds or abrasions. Willow had mostly just altered the color of her eyes and way people saw the shape of her face. It had also Nice'n Easied her hair, eliminating the need to worry about roots. Willow swore the magic - and the tiny sliver of crystal lying somewhere inside Buffy's collarbone - would be undetectable as anything other than a slayer's normal power.

After the year she'd just had, Buffy knew her disguise was foolproof.

Her mood shifted darker.

She had been so over Riley Finn she hadn't even known he and Sam had gone missing. Too busy trying to stay sane. Dealing with Angel's death in L.A. Coming so soon after losing Spike in the Hellmouth, she'd found it hard to care about anything. She'd welcomed the military request to investigate what had happened to their team in Brazil. She'd needed to take her rage out on things she was allowed to kill, and she hadn't needed her friends watching her while she did it.

But when she came back to Rome and found Giles and the new Watcher's Council hip deep in an undercover investigation that had them terrified, she decided to maintain her secret identity. The next time "Buffy" had gone to Stephano's mansion, an inexperienced but eager young slayer named Maria had tagged along.

She hadn't even gotten to get in a good snoop. The accountant, whose name she couldn't recall at the moment, had eyed her intently the entire visit. When he asked if she'd like to go to the Pit Fighter, she'd thought he was asking her on a date.

So much for that theory.

Still, it wasn't all bad. The demon fights were why she'd accepted his invitation in the first place. She'd simply be seeing them from a slightly less safe perspective. Buffy studied the smirks on the bad guys' faces and sighed. Very unsafe.

"Why me, anyway? Isn't it just a bit risky kidnapping me right out from under the Slayer's nose?" she asked, only slightly sarcastically.

The accountant shrugged," Your oh-so foolish Buffy sees only the Immortal. And pretty girls go missing all the time, yes? Although, perhaps by the time the Immortal rescues you, you will not be so pretty."

Buffy narrowed her eyes.

Rescued by the Immortal, huh?

It seemed an awfully elaborate plan to score points with his honey. And why the girl travelling with the Slayer? Why not snatch one of the slayers off the streets? It wasn't like there weren't enough of them wandering about. Although, now that Buffy thought about it, the slayers in L.A. tended to move in groups of three or more these days. Demons could be harder to kill than vampires, and there were plenty left over after Angel's little coup d'etat.

Was it still a coup if he'd failed?

A failed coup d'etat then. And everyone dead with him.

She felt herself sliding back into the darkness. Not the darkness of the grave. Not the nothingness and numbness she'd felt after crawling out of the grave. Nothing so harmless. This was a burning fury as cold as the desert and twice as merciless. Her time in Brazil, what she had seen there, had only honed its edge. She almost smiled. They wanted a Pit fighter? She hoped they were ready for Armageddon.

She was going to take out the fighters, the owners, the onlookers, and the betting system.

And the hell with who was human.

The van came to a lurching halt, and the back doors opened onto a darkened underground parking bay. She could hear a rumbling in the distance, and roaring. The demons or the crowd? Three men dressed in black had wire nooses attached to eight foot poles, larger versions of the ones used by dog-catchers. She didn't bother to struggle as they dropped the nooses over her head and hauled her out of the van, her hands and feet still manacled.

These guys were even more cautious than the old Council wet works team.

Heartbreaking that it wasn't going to save them.

The roaring and rumbling got louder as she was shoved down a long narrow cement corridor. Too narrow for trucks, not narrow enough to be a service corridor. More like the entrance to a skating rink. The men with the poles pushed her back and forth even though she wasn't resisting. She wasn't sure if they were doing it to get a rise out of her, or just to be mean. They certainly weren't very professional.

According to Giles though, this was where the money started.

There were rumours that it wasn't ending there. Giles had been deeply disturbed to hear rumblings that demons were being chipped again. Distributed like so many candy favours among the power elite. Giles had been worried about the motives of those programming the chips, but Buffy had simply been disgusted by the whole concept.

Killing demons was one thing.

Enslaving them, torturing them...that was just wrong.

They dragged her into a hallway lined on one side with brightly lit cells that reminded her of the Initiative. See-through walls, front and back. The front one faced into the corridor. The one at the back opened onto some sort of arena. The Pit, she would assume, given that what she could see of the floor was covered in sawdust. She could see smartly dressed people talking and laughing as they strolled by, pausing every once in a while to peer into a cell to look at the demon inside.

It was hard to be sure, but Buffy thought she saw another line of cells on the far side of the arena. If the length of the hall she was in was any indication, that was a lot of cages. And a lot of demons. The men with the wire nooses shoved her against the wall as a technician in white clothes came bustling up to them, carrying something in his hand. She inhaled sharply as he pressed it against the back of her neck, sending a blaze of pain streaking down her spine.

"The tattoo identifies you as one of the fighters," the technician said briskly, making a check-mark on his clipboard. "If you attack anyone without a similar tattoo, the pain will be incapacitating. You have three chances. If you attack anyone not wearing a tattoo after that..." he shrugged.

Buffy felt a chill, and wondered if she'd been a bit too cautious about starting to kill people.

Thank god for paranoid friends and locater spells.

"If you survive your first fight, you'll be assigned to a cage. The walls are reinforced with magic, but feel free to test them," the technician said with a smirk. "Common areas include the arena," the technician nodded toward the open space on the far side of the glass, "the cafeteria, and the training areas. All are clearly marked with a blue stripe. Step outside these areas, and security will be notified to pick up your unconscious body. Enter any cage but the one assigned to you, and you will also be rendered unconscious. Security just won't bother to come looking for you."

"And what if I'm dragged into a cage not assigned to me?" Buffy asked dryly.

The technician shrugged, as if the question wasn't worth answering. And she supposed it wasn't, from his point of view. The tattoos were there to keep the cash flow safe. Safe enough anyway. She supposed the possibility of the occasional berserker demon just added to the thrill.

"If your cage door opens onto the arena, you have been assigned a fight. You will have five minutes. If you do not enter the arena by the end of that time, your tattoo will deliver increasingly painful shocks until you show up. Food is always available in the cafeteria. Eat as much as you like. Train whenever you wish - however be advised that security does not patrol these areas. Any questions?"

In other words, every fighter for herself.

Don't expect help, and don't get cornered.

"What happens if I attack another fighter outside the arena?" she asked, just for clarification.

The technician eyed her small-boned human frame and snorted. "You aren't going to last the week. Want my advice? See if you can attract the eye of one of the patrons. Trust me - nothing they'll force you to do will kill you as fast as this place."

Buffy stared at him grimly.

He stared back, then shifted uncomfortably as if confused by her lack of begging and tearful threats. Truthfully, she was a bit more trapped than she had expected, even after being stupid enough to get kidnapped in the first place. Her plan to take out the audience had just undergone drastic revision. At the moment, she would be concentrating on survival. And not getting gang-raped. Or eaten by the more predatory species of demon.

On the upside, Buffy had a powerful witch who'd be looking for her as soon as they realized she was missing. If Willow couldn't track her, there was also the Coven. Buffy might not be getting out immediately, but she _was_ getting out. So survival first, vengeance second.

Her new motto.

A loud chime echoed through the halls and she saw the patrons in the arena all start to head in the same direction. Within minutes, the arena was clear and the technician smiled as a second chime sounded and a voice came over the loudspeaker. He smirked as he looked at Buffy.

"Looks like someone wants to get a gander at you. You're up first."

Buffy blinked with surprise as she was man-handled through a nearby door and into the arena. It was huge and rectangular, with stadium seating built into the second level on all four sides. There were doors at the first level on the far end of the arena that she assumed were for the patrons to come and go during visiting hours. Given that the doors had huge red stripes on them, she guessed they were out of bounds.

The nooses were slipped over her head and a key tossed into the sawdust at her feet.

She squinted into the bright lights as she unlocked the manacles and waited for her first opponent to appear. The loudspeaker started booming out something she couldn't understand - no doubt it sounded different up in the stands. She caught the words 'vampire slayer' though. She wasn't all that surprised to feel the tingle of vampire across the back of her neck when the glass door of a cage on the far side of the arena opened up.

And when the fighter came out of his cage low and fast, it didn't surprise her at all.

But when he got closer, close enough for her to see the yellow eyes burning in an unnaturally pale face, she was surprised. Surprised enough that she almost died right there, because he didn't pull the first punch, or even the second. And as she rolled away from him, she wondered if the drugs they'd used had side effects. If she was hallucinating the tattered jeans and familiar features. Because the vampire trying to kill her was dead. Had burned to death in a Hellmouth almost two years ago.

Spike.


	3. Chapter 3

He didn't know her.

And for the first time in ever, maybe she didn't know him. This vicious snarling demon wasn't Spike. Except for the end, with his soul weighing him down, Spike had always taken a gleeful, almost child-like joy in fighting. The vampire pacing around her, looking for an opening, was nothing but serious.

"Spike?"

He didn't pause. Didn't hesitate. Didn't even seem to register the fact she had spoken his name. Regardless of what the accountant had implied, this wasn't a rescue. It was a recovery mission. She just wasn't dead yet. So...bait? Lure Buffy to the fights with tales of her poor dead slayer? And then what? Watch her cry buckets over Spike? That didn't make any sense.

Which really wasn't the concern at the moment.

Because Spike _really_ didn't know her. And it wasn't just the glamour to blame.

Something had sent him over the edge. He wasn't hearing or seeing anything but what she was. She could see it in the way he reacted to how she moved. Even if he remembered he had once loved a Slayer named Buffy, she didn't look or sound like her. Didn't smell like her either. Willow had done a killer job on the glamour, and there were demons other than vampires with enhanced senses of smell.

Right now, she just smelled like a slayer.

If she had ever wondered how deadly he could be, she now had an answer. So far, she was frustrating him with her unwillingness to engage. Frustrating the audience too, if the boos and yelling were any indication. She ignored them. Ignored everything except the demon circling her, all his instincts high and telling him he was facing an enemy. Which was bad, very bad. Because she had no way to tell him she wasn't a threat.

An old memory niggled at the back of her mind.

She frowned, even as she rolled away from another attack, this time almost too slow. The audience screamed for blood as his hand caught the trailing end of her skirt and pulled her off-balance. She wobbled, flipping into a backwards cartwheel that was as showy as it was useless at the moment.

But it kept the audience happy and the demon confused.

What the hell had Spike done? She couldn't remember. She'd been angry and he'd...he'd...fallen to his knees. Laughing. Tilting his head back and baring his throat in a gesture of surrender. Absolute surrender. She'd almost killed him. She'd _wanted_ to kill him, because something in that gesture had spoken to the darkness inside her and she'd thought he was mocking her.

He had stopped laughing when she touched his throat.

Maybe she didn't know all of him, but she still knew parts of him. The demon had instincts she could use if she was willing to pay the price. She reminded herself that he didn't care this time around. Wasn't in love with her. But the only other option was to kill him. And that wasn't an option at all.

She sank to her knees, closed her eyes, and tilted her head back.

He checked so hard, her body was peppered with sawdust as he halted. She heard him growl, low in his throat, sounding angry and confused. Then he snarled, and began pacing around her. He thought it was a trick, and she could feel him making swift darting attacks, his hand coming close enough to her throat to brush her skin.

Spike had always told her a Slayer didn't smell like food. She supposed now would be the moment she'd discover if that was true. Because she had just offered him everything in exchange for his protection. If he accepted, everything was what he would take. In public. On a sawdust covered floor.

But he was alive.

If she had to take the scenic route to hell and back, he was going to stay that way.

She hadn't taken what he'd offered, not back then. He'd wanted it, though. In spite of his laughter. He'd wanted it so badly his entire body had shaken with it. Spike wanted so much to simply belong, that he'd gotten his soul for her. She told the others - she'd told herself - it was because he'd almost hurt her. That was partly true. He'd shocked himself with what he'd almost done. But most of that shock had been confusion, and fear of consequences.

_Stop me._

That's what he'd always told her. Smiling at her, because he'd known she didn't want him to stop. She'd had the power to stop him. If she chose. After dying that first time, she'd always had the physical power. His edge had been experience and attitude. It had turned him on, the fact she could stop him.

And didn't.

But she had been right too. She couldn't trust him. She was the Slayer. There were rules she couldn't afford to break. He tempted her to violence, with his very acceptance of it. He didn't understand - or care even - why she drew the line she did. He crossed it, finally, and in a single moment, she'd seen him understand that there was no crossing back.

Part of her had been glad for his pain. And part of her had been glad it was finally over. He'd proven her right all along. He couldn't be trusted. Then he took terror to a whole new level, and got back his soul. For her. Because that was the reason she had beaten into him, why he would never belong. And belonging to her had meant something to the demon.

Buffy had known even then, that she was everything he had lost.

Family. Fair maiden. Spike had been Sired into a family where he was loved, in a demented vampire way. Valued. Protected. Drusilla's dark knight and depraved playmate. Grandchild and little brother to Angelus. A hundred plus years and Spike had never been alone, not until Drusilla left him.

She suspected the demon was exhausted and scared...and very tired of being alone.

He stopped behind her, and she concentrated on keeping her breathing even. He'd be able to smell her wariness, but the key would be her genuine lack of fear. Something she shouldn't - couldn't - feel, if she truly meant the offer she was making. He didn't move, and she could feel him staring down at her, wary and perplexed. He had three choices now: accept, reject, or kill her.

In spite of the odds, in spite of what she knew of him, she was still surprised when he knelt to wrap an arm around her waist. Part of her was annoyed that he would choose this - do this - with a slayer he'd never met, and who wasn't her. At least as far as he knew. But then, she didn't think he knew much of anything right now, and she could be jealous of herself later.

His snarling shifted to an odd whuffling noise as he scented along her shoulder. From the cheers, the audience expected to see one dead slayer in another few moments. She so hated to disappoint them. He wasn't even going to turn her. If he accepted her, he was accepting her as she was. Her blood, her life. Her slayerness. That was sort of the point.

It wasn't until he bit her that she remembered he never had. She had never offered and Spike had never dared to ask. He was persistent, not stupid. The scars on her neck had bothered him though, she'd known they had. One had been a violation, and the other a gift of love. Spike had fallen into neither of those categories.

He drank her life as if it were a right. Something valuable, and valued, but not treasured. Something he took as it was offered. An exchange. She felt the change in the way he was holding her the moment she felt the effect of her blood on his body.

She didn't think about the crowd. She didn't think about what people were wondering as they watched him push her to her hands and knees. She didn't think about the lights or the cameras or the fact he smelled like the lover she had lost. Strangely, she thought about the fact that she now had proof he had loved her. Soulless or not, there had been more feeling in his hands then, more emotion in his barest touch, than what he was doing now.

It was a business transaction to him. A way of sealing the deal. An outlet for the adrenaline in her blood and a warning to all the demons watching that she was under his protection. A fact, she thought wryly, that would have amused the old Spike, given how often she'd threatened to kill him. And that was the problem. She could kill him. But she couldn't beat him to a standstill and be certain of winning.

And part of her, was glad. Fiercely glad, and she was rather stunned to realize it was the Slayer. The darkness didn't care about the watchers, or the venue, or the fact he didn't know who he was touching. The dark, possessive part of her cared only that he was alive and moving within her, surrounding her with his scent. That part was angry and primitive and ferociously glad of the opportunity to show everyone that he belonged to her.

And it was going to rip apart anyone who tried to take him away again.

He rested against her for a brief moment when he finished, his face brushing against the back of her neck. Locking her scent into the most primitive parts of his brain. She was safe from the demon now. More or less. He got to his feet and didn't touch her or look at her as he started back to his cell.

For a moment, the humanity in her wanted to feel hurt or insulted. It was the darkness that whispered she was supposed to follow him. From a certain point of view, he had defeated her in battle. He wasn't supposed to help her to her feet, or wait as she put her clothing back to rights. It still hurt.

She added it to the growing list of sins she held against the Immortal.


	4. Chapter 4

She hesitated at the door to his cell, wondering what would happen when she stepped inside. Hoping she hadn't been assigned to a different address, she braced herself for pain and stepped past the glass. It slid shut behind her and she turned to look at it speculatively. She was reaching to touch it when Spike closed a hand around her wrist and pulled her away. Startled, she looked at him, almost expecting to see some glimmer of recognition in his eyes.

But it was just the demon, protecting his property.

He let her go as soon as he saw she understood. He was turning away from her when movement in the hallway grabbed both their attentions. She was interested to see that Spike stepped in front of her when the glass slid open. Somehow, she wasn't surprised when Stephano and the technician from before walked into the cell.

It was the knowing look on his face, and the way he was glaring at Spike that kept her from attacking the Immortal. Stephano knew something she didn't, and he clearly hated Spike. As in, carried a very personal grudge against. Given the way Spike seemed to feel he was supposed to protect his belongings, she didn't want to move until she knew how many strikes he was out.

"My dear," the Immortal cried, "I saw what happened. How terrible for you and how terrible that I was not able to protect you. I had no idea you were here until it was too late."

He seemed not to notice the sceptical look on her face.

"Does that mean you can get us out of here?" she asked blandly, not expecting a positive answer.

"I am working on it," the Immortal promised. "Alas, I have been told that you have gotten yourself claimed by this vampire."

The leer on Stephano's face would be punished.

"I have been told he will not be willing to surrender you short of death, and those who own him are unwilling to risk his life by taking you from him."

"So buy them off," Buffy said flatly. "Giles will pay for both of us."

The Immortal hesitated, and she suspected his cautious look was in response to how she had referred to her former Watcher. Most slayers called him Mr. Giles. She had no way to know if that had just raised her value, or earned her a death sentence.

"Bella, I try. But this vampire, the owners are not so willing to part with him. I pull strings. I offer money. But it will take time. You will fight with him, yes? It will pay off his debt much faster."

"I won't fight him," she said bluntly.

"No! No! You misunderstand. You will fight as partners. The more money you make, the less money his owners lose when they give him to me. You understand?"

"Absolutely," she said dryly.

Stephano wasn't going to tell Giles a damn thing. Not until his pockets were well and truly lined-and perhaps not even then. There was more going on here than just money. They hadn't gone to the effort of kidnapping a slayer just to see her sucked dry on Spike's fangs. Unless...

Maybe Stephano wanted Buffy to see her former lover drain one of her slayers. The Immortal really hadn't done his homework if he hadn't realized the Scoobies classified murder while insane as a forgivable sin. Insane. Bewitched. Brainwashed, or addicted to various substances. Hell, even being demonic counted some days, if the demon felt really bad about it afterwards and promised never to do it again.

After a few worthless promises to get her home, the Immortal reached for her hand - pulling up sharply when Spike growled. Stephano gave him a hate-filled glare and told her sorrowfully that she would be required to stay in Spike's cell. Putting her in her own cell was asking for trouble, so she had been assigned to sleep here.

He seemed to think she'd mind.

She flipped her hands at him dismissively. "It's Spike." And enjoyed the confusion on his face as he wondered what she knew about the vampire and why she didn't seem to be afraid of him.

A few more meaningless promises later, the Immortal left, looking extremely dissatisfied. Buffy felt warmed to soles of her bare and chilly feet.

"Asshole," she muttered, as the glass door slid shut behind him.

Spike ignored her, and lost interest in the Immortal once he was no longer in sight. Buffy sank down onto the cot as the only piece of furniture, then yelped when Spike grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and tossed her to the other side of the room. She looked at him with disbelief as he settled down to rest.

She was torn between annoyance, and a feeling of relief that just because he'd had sex with Maria as part of some vampire dominance thing, he wasn't in any hurry to snuggle. Not that there had been a lot of snuggling back in Sunnydale. Mostly though, because she had not allowed it. Spike would have snuggled. He so would have snuggled. In fact, Spike was a regular snuggle bunny.

So it was a good thing, right?

That he didn't want to snuggle?

She passed the next few hours watching the fights through the glass and analyzing the survivors. There were a few who'd be a real challenge, especially unarmed. During half-time she glared at the patrons who peered in at them, staring contemptuously at the women who gave her knowing looks and the men who licked their lips as they stared at her breasts. She fantasized about all the ways she was going to rip their eyeballs out after Willow came to rescue her.

Her resolve not to do anything confrontational to Spike lasted about six hours.

That was about how long it took for the patrons to go home and for the arena to shut down for the night. At which point the temperature dropped and her teeth started to chatter. Spike slept on, curled up comfortably under the only blanket in the room. She glared at him resentfully. Even in sleep his face remained in vamp form and he twitched sporadically, reminiscent of the way he had winced whenever he had set the chip off back in the old days.

Combined with the rumours about newly chipped demons, Buffy had a very bad feeling about those twitches.

Still, there was nothing she could do about that, and she was cold. It wasn't like he even needed the blanket. Plus, the cot was big enough to share if they scrunched. She approached him cautiously, with all due slayer stealth, and slowly wormed her way onto the cot and under the edge of the blanket. Spike remained oblivious, as comatose as ever while sleeping.

Really not a survival feature.

She had just relaxed and was feeling moderately warmer - or about as warm as she could be tucked up next to somebody who was room temperature - when he inhaled sharply and dumped her on the floor again. She snarled at the yellow eyes glaring down at her. Then she got to her feet and planted her hands on her hips.

"Fine," she snapped peevishly." But I'm taking the blanket."

Before he could react, she snatched it away from him and flung it over her shoulders. She had three seconds of silence - she actually counted them in her head. Then a pissed off demon landed on her, throwing her back to the floor. He flipped her over and pinned her with both hands while snarling threats into her face.

She rolled her eyes and tilted back her head, exposing her throat. "Yeah. Right. Whatever. You're still in charge. All...dominant and what not." To emphasize her point she wrapped her legs around his hips and lifted herself against him. "But I need the blanket."

He didn't appear convinced.

She sighed." You know, I didn't want to do this..."

It was low. And very sneaky. _Really_ not fair given the way he was hard-wired. But desperate times called for desperate measures. She let her bottom lip protrude slightly in a pout. No one gave better puppy dog eye than Spike, and she'd had plenty of chances to pick up a few pointers. The big eyes, the heart-breaking sadness. The desperate need and wordless pleading.

Spike whined uncertainly as her eyes filled with unshed tears.

Then he pulled himself away from her and stalked back to his bed.

Without the blanket.

"I feel very cheap right now," she told him.

He growled at her in the darkness.


	5. Chapter 5

Morning came far too soon and without coffee.

Slayers weren't designed to sleep on floors. And they required mocha cappuccino. She folded the blanket and left it on her side of the floor - least Spike get any idea that she was giving it back - and stalked out of their cage. She was somewhat aware of him vaulting off the cot and trailing after her, however she was caffeine-deprived, she needed to pee, and the inside of her mouth tasted like something had crawled in and died.

Which meant she was in the perfect mood to meet her first demon of the day.

It leered at her as it stepped out of its cage, blocking her path. Others lined the hallway behind it, clearly planning to enjoy the incipient screaming. Buffy didn't even pause. She sprang high, pushing off the wall with one foot, slamming her knee into the side of its massive head. Then she grabbed the two horns above its ears and twisted with every ounce of annoyance in her body. The head wrenched free with a ripping sound and she tossed it over her shoulder and kept going.

The next demon got out of her way.

As did the one after that.

In fact, she was remarkably demon free as she made her way to the cafeteria and poured herself a cup of coffee. She decided that as a good little minion she was probably supposed to get Spike his blood. She tossed a pack of A-positive onto the tray with her fruit cup. She didn't see a microwave so he'd just have to suffer it cold.

Spike waited until she sat down, then settled onto the bench across from her and regarded her with an unblinking stare. She placed the pack of blood in front of him and dug into her breakfast. He snarfed the blood down absentmindedly as he watched her. She gave him a puzzled look, then shrugged it off when there didn't seem to be any actual thinking behind the weird stare. Something she suddenly realized she missed.

Spike thinking.

Plotting. Scheming.

That brain of his had never been silent. Even if it was only occupied with how to get her into bed, it chirped and whirred and buzzed about, like an energizer bunny on acid. It was no wonder he never had any impulse control. Too many neurons firing at the same time. And now he sat there like an animal, no higher thought and half-mad with pain.

Somebody was going to pay, with daily compound interest, when she found out who was responsible.

She decided being a minion had its perks as Spike stood guard outside the communal bathroom while she took a shower. Then she decided it didn't, when as soon as they got back to his cell, he pounced on her. Not that she had anything against doggie-style, but would it kill him to get her off while he was at it?

She figured out the pattern, by the end of the day.

It was the blood. Every time he fed, he got horny. Like any dog with an itch, he scratched. Casually, with no more thought behind it than just that. An itch he had to scratch. There were no fights that day, and the arena was quiet when she finally lost her patience. If she was supposed to be a minion, he was supposed to take care of her. And this itch-scratching was leaving her so not taken care of, she decided it was time to take care of herself.

Maybe he didn't have two brain-cells to rub together, but Spike had always been trainable. When he wanted to be. She just had to motivate him. She hadn't bothered to put her underwear back on after the last itch he had scratched, so when she sat down with her back against the cage wall, she was facing him and his cot when she bent her knees and planted her feet square on the floor.

Room with a view, she thought wickedly, as she flipped her skirt out of the way.

Spike had his eyes closed and seemed to be resting when she dipped her hand between her legs and began fingering herself. The shallow thrusting he'd used to get himself off had only frustrated her, and the tingling returned full force as she worked herself with a practiced hand. Not too quickly of course, she wanted him to have a show if he ever bothered to open those fierce yellow eyes. Maybe connect what she was doing to what he'd been doing, so hopefully, he'd get the point that he needed to do it better.

She remembered the way he had touched her, back in Sunnydale.

Reverently. Obscenely. Fascinated by her responses. Desperate for her to respond to him. It wasn't enough, what she was doing. She hungered for more than her own fingers could provide, but they'd have to do for now. And her memories. She closed her eyes as she came, whispering his name. Acknowledging even as she did so that he was as lost to her now as he was before she had found him.

Because it wasn't Spike here with her.

And she hadn't really lied when she'd said she loved him.

She thought at first she was imagining his touch against her cheek. Then she opened her eyes and found him crouched beside her, a look of curiosity on his face. He leaned in, nostrils flaring, and she realized he was scenting her tears. A strange sort of thing for him to focus on, given what she had been doing. But that was Spike; always with the unexpected.

He surprised her when he licked her face.

Delicately he traced his tongue over the path each tear had taken. She wasn't sure if he was trying to comfort her or simply trying to understand, but it comforted her nonetheless. He still cared. It wasn't Spike and it wasn't about her, but some part of him cared that she hurt enough to cry. It was better than nothing, and she could pretend it was more.

She couldn't do anything else.


	6. Chapter 6

Their cage opened onto the arena the next day.

An orange-garbed laundry worker had been by to drop off clean clothes and Buffy had refused to give up her old ones. The security guards had zapped her several times with something resembling a cattle prod, but she had stood firm. Spike's growling had grown to dangerous levels when they finally threw the new clothes on the floor and stomped off in disgust.

Buffy had washed her old clothes in the shower, and hung them to dry from the underside of Spike's cot. Then she'd spread the blanket to hide them from view. Spike had watched with puzzlement, but he didn't protest when she crawled under the cot to do it. Simply bent over to peer at her while she did it.

Ironic, really, that the crazy demon thought she had lost her mind. But those clothes were hers. She was hanging onto them as long as possible. She wasn't going to get herself - or him - killed over the issue, but she'd risk a few bruises.

The new clothes were a travesty.

Someone had thought the whole slayer-vampire thing was a great joke. So they had dressed her up in animal skins. At least they didn't expect her to fight topless, she thought with disgust. But if her outfit was easy - skin halter and loincloth - they'd drawn a blank coming up with something that screamed vampire.

In the end, they went with studded motorcycle boots, leather pants, and a long black leather coat. No shirt or other decoration. Just a black leather belt with a wide silver buckle. They clearly were not too concerned with the idea he might use any of it as a weapon later.

Then again, why should they?

But she had her suspicions about why they were both being dolled up. So when their door opened, she went out as fast and as vicious as she knew how, knowing he'd follow her. And she didn't just kill her opponents, she gouged eyeballs from their sockets, ripped off arms and heads, and let the blood and gore coat her hair, skin, and clothing.

A very primitive look for her, but one that she suspected could work.

Spike, unfortunately, stayed almost pristine. Sexy as hell, but that was a bad thing. She didn't have time to smear any of her gore on him before the patrons descended. They strolled through the hallway this time, as the arena was still being used for fights. Buffy stood silently, her head slightly lowered, and concentrated on exuding primal malevolence.

The women gave her uneasy looks even as they trailed their filthy paws across her vampire. Spike ignored them, and watched Buffy. Then what she had expected to happen, happened. A man stepped into the cage smelling of lust and twisted urges, and Spike started to growl. It was almost inaudible, mostly subsonic, and it vibrated across her bones like a call to battle.

She stalked toward the patron, stepping between him and Spike.

The man looked startled and wary when she smiled.

"You can't have him," she said.

The man eyed her speculatively, with a perverted lust that made her ill just thinking about it. It rolled off him like stench, that desire for pain. Angelus had possessed something similar, although looking back, his desire had been for the breaking. Pain had simply been a tool. For this man, pain was a goal in and of itself.

Buffy felt her eyes go cold and let the darkness surge to the fore.

"I can put my fist through your skull before my tattoo knocks me unconscious," she said brightly. "Wanna see?"

He stared at her. Weighing his money and his options. He could drug them. Come back with men and tranquilizer guns. Spike, though, would lose his already precarious state of mind if they dragged her out of here while she was under his protection. They'd have to kill him. And she'd just told them they'd have to do the same to her, to get to him. Given the money these fights made, she really didn't think the owners would think it was worth it.

If pain could control Spike... he wouldn't be here.

He'd be in a brothel somewhere where this new chip made him easy prey.

The year she had spent in Brazil had shown her a lot she hadn't known about the cruelty men could do. Being the Slayer, she'd thought she understood evil. But her naiveté had shocked her. Her middle class upbringing, she supposed. It shouldn't have, not after everything she'd seen. Everything she'd done. But it had hurt something inside, accepting that men didn't have to sell their souls to become monsters.

And so the night went.

It didn't take long for her to realize that some of the women and most of the men had come here looking to see if she could be used to control Spike. Which made her wonder how many people he had killed before they took no for an answer. Nine times out of ten, the blood drying on her clothes scared the wanna-be rapists away.

The other ten percent didn't like the gleam in her eye, or the high chance of dying. They liked pain - just not their own. And it seemed Buffy had been correct. The owners wouldn't have minded picking up a little extra cash, but they didn't want either of them dead. Still, she decided it wouldn't hurt to stand watch.

Her vigilance was rewarded.

Spike had settled on top of the cot - and her blanket, damn it - although she doubted he slept. He was a shade too still, even for him. She'd been sitting, leaning back against the cot when she heard them. Coming smoothly to her feet, she stood in front of the glass, quiet and waiting. Fully prepared to kill whoever walked through that door.

He had three men with him, all carrying tranquilizer guns. She wondered if he had the owners' permission, or if it was a case of not letting rules stand in the way of what he wanted. He changed his mind quick enough, when he saw her standing there. Odd, how her wide delighted smile seemed to disconcert him more than anything else. He cast a hungry look at Spike, a resentful one at her, then retreated.

Spike didn't move or react in any way when she came to sit back down against the cot. He didn't even seem to be awake. But when the temperature dropped two hours later, he slipped out of his leather coat and draped it around her shoulders.


	7. Chapter 7

Given the blood on her clothes and the general ick factor of her body, Buffy had her shower before breakfast this time. Her old clothes were still slightly damp, but better than wet rabbit. She wouldn't have minded seeing those disappear, but with only two sets of clothes, she couldn't afford to be picky.

Spike's old jeans had gone with the laundry lady, so he wore his leather pants to breakfast. Not a hardship on the eyes as far as she was concerned, but it seemed to surprise most of the demons there.

"They're looking for damage."

Buffy blinked around a mouthful of yogurt as a half-demon of some sort plunked himself down on the seat next to her, answering her unspoken curiosity. Spike paused mid-swallow to eye the other demon suspiciously. When Buffy didn't react, Spike relaxed and went back to breakfast. He was eating well. Just to be on the safe side, she dropped the other packet of blood from her tray in front of him, patting his hand briefly when he looked at her inquiringly.

The demon beside her seemed oddly fascinated by the exchange.

"What was that about damage?" Buffy asked, returning her attention to whatever it was that was talking.

"Oh...erm...they are just surprised he's not damaged. There's generally more..."

The demon trailed off and swallowed sharply, as Buffy narrowed her eyes.

"What kind of damage?" Buffy asked dangerously.

"Ah...pain chip mostly," the demon stammered. "The nights they try to get to him usually mess him up worse than he already is. Sometimes he's beaten pretty badly. And the clothes are usually bloody."

"His blood?"

The demon hesitated. "Sometimes," he said abruptly. He met Buffy's hard gaze. "I don't think his tattoo works like ours. And he's the only one of us chipped. But he can fight back. " The demon's mouth twisted unhappily. "They like it when you fight back."

Buffy absorbed that. "No offense, but why are you talking to me?" she asked suspiciously.

The demon glanced at Spike, then back to Buffy. "You're a slayer, right? One of the Slayer's girls?"

Buffy nodded cautiously.

"So some of us figure you aren't here by accident. Like maybe you were sent here to get him out." The demon tipped his head toward Spike.

"Hey. I'm just a minion," Buffy said pointedly. "You saw. The whole vampire dominance thingy. " She stabbed the last of her fruit cup. "Not like everybody didn't see that," she muttered.

The demon blinked. "Minion. Right. " He looked at the blood packet Spike was eating and snorted.

"What?" Buffy asked, confused.

The demon just shook his head. "Anyway...a few of us have been talking. And we're agreed. You get a way to disable the tattoos, get us out of here, and we're behind you. Your plan, all the way. Whatever you need us to do."

He stood up calmly and ambled away. Buffy stared after him thoughtfully, not happy with her thoughts. If the demons thought she was making plans, surely there were demons thinking about selling those plans to the owners.

She twisted abruptly to face Spike.

"Okay, I need you to be extra fangy today," she said seriously. "Remember that you're too damn scary for your own good."

He looked at her placidly. She regarded him with frustration. " Be ferocious, Spike." She curled her hands into claws and swiped at him."Grrrrr."

He tilted his head like a confused German Sheppard.

"We're so gonna die," Buffy moaned. She sighed and stood up.

He waited until she had walked past him before he moved in behind her right shoulder.

Then he roared.

A nasty, evil, right from the gut, abandon all hope now, roar. Every muscle in her body was clenched tight when she landed back on her feet and she felt like one of those cartoon cats clinging to the ceiling. She heard a spoon clatter on tile floor, somewhere from the terrified silence on the other side of the cafeteria.

She turned slowly and found him smirking at her.

"Right," she said weakly. "Just like that."

And when she walked out of the cafeteria, she could feel him sauntering along behind her. Doing a reasonable imitation of Spike when he wanted to play. Something that didn't do her equilibrium any good, because she was fairly certain as soon as they got back to their cell he was gonna...yep...

...want to scratch.

She had told herself last time, that the next time he did this, she was going to take over and show him just what their two bodies could do. She hadn't thought he'd mind. Now she wasn't so sure. Taking over, taking away his control...she was suddenly sure that was the absolute last thing she should do. At least until she knew he knew that what she was doing was about pleasure, not dominance.

An issue that was confused enough, with a vampire and a Slayer in the mix.

She went to her knees willingly enough when he pushed on her shoulder. But she twisted as she went down. Since he'd been holding on to her, she brought him down with her. He ended up lying between her legs, blinking in surprise, as she lay on her back and eyed him consideringly.

She wasn't sure what the demon knew about pleasure. It was possible all sex was of the scratch-the-itch variety. She had a feeling not, however. She figured, Spike just wasn't putting a lot of thought into the matter. However, he was looking better today. Maybe due to the extra blood she'd been putting in front of him. Or maybe because the pain chip hadn't been abused last night. Whatever the reason, he didn't seem to be twitching as much.

And like Spike had ever let a little thing like pain get in the way of sex.

She ran her hands lightly over his chest when he seemed disinclined to move things along on his own. He looked down curiously, but didn't protest. It was odd, and oddly painful at the same time. Seeing his open, curious expression. It was so Spike, and yet at the same time, he wasn't her Spike. There was nothing in those eyes beyond curiosity.

She paused, then ran her fingertips cautiously over the bumpy contours of his face. Strange, but she'd never just looked at him before. Or not so strange, actually. She'd have kicked his ass to the floor if he'd ever vamped out during sex. But it seemed odd, now, looking back. As violent as it had got, as dark as it had been, that she'd never brought his demon out. Unless they were fighting. Or he was offering her a target.

She wondered suddenly if that was normal.

She quickly discovered he liked the area over his eyebrow ridges scratched. He turned his whole face into her hand when she did that, and made an odd purring noise in the back of his throat. Then he dropped his face into the side of her neck, and she gasped as the vibration shivered along her collarbone and into the pit of her stomach. She arched against him, bringing one leg around his body to draw him closer. His purr deepened as she turned her head to kiss the only part of him she could reach, the sensitive skin under his ear.

Screw the lesson, she thought muzzily, as she reached for his belt buckle. She could worry about it later. He'd always been sensitive around the back of his neck, and as she guided him into her with one hand, she ran the nails of her other up under his hair, then back down, scratching lightly. He responded with a moan, and a blind thrust into her body. Without thinking, she dug her fingers into the taut muscles flexing under her hands and pulled him further into her, trying for a deeper, more satisfying motion than he'd been using.

He hesitated, then braced himself, thrusting harder, and she rewarded him by clenching her inner muscles around him. Which in turn, rewarded her with an exquisite friction that had her gasping his name as she strained against his body. He never blinked, never took his eyes off her own, and when he came, he took her with him. Like a summer storm. Wild and unexpected and dangerous.

Then he cried out, rearing back as the bones of his face cracked hard and painfully. He shuddered, and his human face reformed, as if it were being torn from the very depths of his soul. Forced up, and ripped free of its hiding place. She froze, shocked, as yellow eyes faded to blue.

He looked...startled.

And when he collapsed against her, she was helpless to move, terrified to do something wrong, as she felt cool tears slide like blood across her skin.


	8. Chapter 8

She didn't know how long he cried.

She did know he needed to sleep. There would be fights scheduled later, and given how she'd pissed off the patrons, they'd probably be ugly. Nobody looked at her when she stepped into the cafeteria to gather up blood and sandwiches. No one hassled her either. She would have liked a shower, but she wasn't stupid enough to get naked while alone.

She woke Spike up long enough for him to drink the blood, then let him go back to sleep.

He'd looked fairly out of it, but by the time the patrons started filtering into the arena, he was up and dressed in leather pants and leather coat, the studded motorcycle boots adding height and flare when he moved. She'd settled onto the floor and watched him, amused and impressed. There was a lethal grace to him that had been missing the past five days.

Oh, he'd been dangerous enough. But the awareness of himself as a fighter, the intelligence, had been missing. Now it wasn't. He had yet to speak, and she wasn't sure how much - if any - of his memory had started coming back. But with the return to his human features, the chip appeared to have stopped firing. It remained to be seen how much damage it had done.

Of course, watching him move had the same effect on her that it always had, and sense-o-rama demon that he was, he didn't miss it. She had worried the reaction might offend him, what with all the people who had been fondling him lately. He just grinned, and strutted a bit more obviously.

Go figure.

She wasn't naive enough to think there wouldn't be fall-out. She'd flinched around him weeks after something that even she had to admit had been far less physically dangerous than it had felt at the time. And this wasn't that.

Not even close.

Although, events putting things in perspective, she could see now it hadn't been only - or even mainly - about what he'd tried to do. It had been the fact he'd scared her. She had forgotten to remember that she should be scared. He was a vampire, and she'd let herself forget that. She'd let herself trust him. Worse, she'd felt stupid for even thinking he could change. That he could be different...for her.

So it ended badly. Big surprise. And she'd been left wondering what came next. It wasn't what he'd done that had hurt so badly. It was everything she'd lost because he'd done it. She hadn't known how to forgive him for that. For invalidating everything he'd ever done. Everything he'd ever said. Everything she'd almost let herself believe.

Even though she should have known better.

And worse, Spike knew her. He knew her weaknesses - far more clearly than even Angel ever had. And look what Angelus had done, with what little he had known. She wished they would just leave her when they went. Her father was the only one who'd betrayed her simply by going. The others...they got more inventive.

It wasn't their leaving that scared her. Not after Angelus. It was the ever present question lurking in the back of her mind. It was the sixteen-year-old girl crouched defensively in the back of her mind, waiting for what came next. Waiting for them to hurt her. Waiting for them to let her down. Waiting for them to blame her for the leaving. Forcing her to kill Angel was not the worst thing Angelus had done to her.

She'd only thought so at the time.

Luckily for Spike, he bounced better than she did emotionally. He was like a rubber ball that way. He had this inability to live anywhere but in the now. That, or vampires could compartmentalize. Either way, she wasn't about to wish away horses. If it helped him deal, it was good.

Because tonight was gonna get ugly.

Anyone she fought was going to die, that was a given. But tonight, they would die as brutally and as messily as she could manage. She'd reek of death and pain and promises when they came for him again. She changed into the hated skin bikini, smiled perfunctorily as Spike gave her a lascivious once-over, then she turned to glare at the patrons as they went strolling by.

She'd have thought their lust might have cooled by now, but it seemed that people who bought people got pissed when the people in question protested. There was resentment and malicious glee in many of the sets of eyes peering in at them.

Spike glanced at her, every time her heart-rate increased, but otherwise did nothing.

The first chime sounded, sending the patrons scurrying back to their safe seats. Then the dying started and Spike came to stand at her side. Together they watched through the glass as demon tore into demon, for no better reason than money and a lust for power. Because some sick bastards who didn't have the ability to fight themselves, got off on watching others do it for them.

Then their own door opened and they threw themselves onto the arena floor.

She was halfway to her target when she realized she didn't recognize the species. Spike gave a chilling snarl and darted in front of her, vaulting feet first into the lead demon and wrenching off its arm. At least, she thought it was an arm. Spike dug bloody fingers into it, ripping gobs of flesh from inside what looked like insect armor. Spike dashed back to her, grabbing her right arm and shoving it hand first into a warm, gooey mess.

Her fingers struck a bony protrusion inside, allowing her to get a solid grip. Wearing the arm like a gauntlet, she used the hardened protrusions on the outer edge to score armor, and sliced easily through arm and leg joints where the demons' chitin was weaker. By the time she dismembered her first demon, Spike had ripped off two more arms and was wading into the rest like a buzz-saw.

Oh what a difference a brain makes.

She took out two demons who had been going for his back, then they were standing alone on a field of dismembered body parts and the stands were abnormally silent. She was wondering who to kill next when Spike's head shot up, his nostrils flaring wildly.

"Buffy," she heard him say raspily. Then he was gone.

Racing flat out across the arena for the seats that housed the wealthiest owners.

Only it wasn't her name, she realized abruptly, but her name. She felt a cold streak of fear dart down her spine as she ran after him, knowing she'd never catch him. Not with a head start, and desperation driving him. But he didn't know. He didn't know that the woman he thought was Buffy didn't know him.

Patrons at the far end had started screaming. Most of them started running for the doors. Which only proved they weren't completely stupid. He cleared the barricades separating the seats from the arena and Buffy had to admire the jump. It was a good twenty feet, straight up. Not something a fledgling could do. Not something Spike could have done, before Buffy. Before Glory, and the demon trials, and the First.

Vampires took the saying "that which does not kill me" quite literally.

He was past the red line, proof his tattoo was for little more than show. She paced furiously below, unable to help. She saw him fighting the guards, fighting the chip, his demon to the fore and snarling desperately as he tried to reach Buffy. Who was yelling at the Immortal that he had promised to get Maria out.

Julia saw her and turned to the arena, hand reaching helplessly toward her. "Maria! I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We're working on it. We're getting you out of here. We saw...they sent a tape...I'm so sorry..."

Buffy's body-double turned such a look of loathing on Spike that he froze, and the next guard who hit him knocked him clean over the barricades. He landed back on the arena floor and just lay there as he looked uncomprehendingly up at the woman he thought was Buffy. And the woman known as Maria could almost see his memories fall into place. Saw him remember...

"Spike, no," Buffy said gently. "She doesn't know. She doesn't know it wasn't like that."

And neither did he.

She knelt down beside him, terrified to touch him least he overreact and hurt himself. When she looked up, Julia was staring down at her, a confused look on her face. The look Buffy sent back was less than friendly. The smile on Stephano's face was smug, and full of satisfaction. He'd been losing control of the situation, Buffy realized. So he'd taken the opportunity to poison Buffy's mind against Spike.

The woman he thought was Buffy.

A hollow boom rang out and both slayers began to smile as alarms started to blare. Magical energy sizzled along the walls and Buffy's smile widened further.

"You," she called up, pointing her finger at the Immortal. "Time's up."


	9. Chapter 9

It took the rest of the night to get things sorted out.

The patrons streaming from the building had run straight into the arms of three hundred pissed off slayers. They were currently under guard at the Hyperion Hotel, it being the easiest place to keep them until Buffy and the Council decided what she wanted to do with them.

Transport to a demon dimension was her current favorite.

As for the hotel, apparently her ownership was temporary. Angel had left it to Buffy on the condition none of his people survived the battle with Wolfram and Hart. Willow had mumbled something Buffy didn't quite understand about how it now belonged to Spike. Then she raced off when something exploded, and before she could explain.

At least someone had remembered to bring Buffy some clothes.

The slower moving patrons and most of the employees were dead. Not a single demon had attacked a slayer, but everyone else had been fair game. By the time the fighting ended, the dead outnumbered the demons. Buffy already planned to ask the coven to send the latter back to their home dimensions. For now, the ex-slaves had voluntarily retired to their cages.

The slayers made them nervous.

Willow was still busy trying to save the computer records - a.k.a. The Evidence - from magical immolation. A safeguard, apparently. Tripped when security was breached. Buffy wouldn't have resented the delay if it wasn't for the fact there was something Spike needed to know. Now. Stuff she couldn't tell him. Literally.

Not even truth spells worked on that bit of crystal under her skin.

That had been the point.

She couldn't even help with the fighting. To everyone except Willow and Julia, Maria was just another slayer. A potentially traumatized and unstable one at that. For lack of anything better to do, she shoved a packet of blood into Spike's hands and sat next to him on a tabletop in the empty cafeteria.

He turned it over, a half-hearted smile appearing on his face.

Buffy cocked her head, remembering something she'd wanted to ask him. "So...not a good minion?"

Spike snorted briefly.

She sighed." I did try."

"Not exactly in a slayer's personality, pet." Then he looked at her, his eyes darkening with regret. "What I did..."

"I knew what would happen."

Well, she'd known it was a possibility.

Spike was frowning. "Not really like you had a choice, luv."

"I could have killed you," she said, matter-of-factly. "Not good, but always an option."

She could almost feel his disbelief. An inexperienced slayer take out William the Bloody? When he was feral, and dangerous, and not distracted by her mother? A slayer who wasn't Buffy? It was almost flattering, but still...Buffy took the blood from his hands, placing it out of the way. Then she gripped his restless fingers with her own.

"Spike," she said firmly, "the shape you were in, I could have killed you easy. I didn't want to. I chose not to. I knew exactly what would happen and I know it wasn't...I know it wasn't personal. It was just a dominance thing."

Blue eyes jerked away from her, hunting briefly for another woman's face in the empty doorway.

"I owe you," Spike said in a low voice. "I won't forget that." Then he met her curious gaze, blue eyes unexpectedly resolute. " But that's where it has to end, yeah?"

She frowned, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

He looked at the blood lying on the table, then gave their linked hands and the space between them a significant glance. She caught the look, she just didn't catch the meaning.

"What?"

"Pet, you've been a right good sport about everything, and don't think I'm not grateful," he said carefully. "Thing is though, I'm getting the feeling maybe you were figuring on keeping me around for a bit."

And he looked almost shy.

Which was ridiculous, because Spike was never shy.

"Would that be so bad?" she asked, without thinking.

Then cursed herself for an idiot, because that was just cruel. And she hadn't meant to be.

"Yes, luv," Spike said regretfully, "it really would. I can't be keeping company with a slayer." He hesitated, then said quietly, "No matter how much part of me wishes I could."

It was meant as a kindness. A sop to her pride. Which was of the good, right? That meant it wasn't about having a slayer. Otherwise, Maria would do just as well. Right? Except Maria had never dated Angel, had she? Or given Spike a hard time. Spike only respected people if they gave him a hard time. But she was sitting right here. Buffy in all her Buffyness. She didn't expect him to fall in love with her. Not in five days.

But shouldn't he like her? Want to keep her?

Just a little?

"Do you really?" she asked abruptly. "Wish you could?"

His head snapped around from where it had gone - back to watching the door. He regarded her as if surprised by the question. Then he reached to touch her face, a wistful expression in his eyes, and she wanted to jerk back from him. Take away the question. She abruptly - absolutely - did not want the answer.

"I'd be seeing echoes, pet," he said seriously. "You deserve better."

Yeah, right.

Suddenly his willingness to sit here quietly began to piss her off. So he thought Buffy thought he'd done something ethically questionable. So what? Since when did that ever stop Spike from tracking her down and trying to explain? Over and over and over again. Fifty-nine different ways, sixty-five different flavors.

"So why are you sitting here?" she demanded, irritated. "Are you just going to trail after her, six paces behind, until she forgives you?"

A flash of something crossed his face, then he forced a cocky smile. "They have laws against that, pet."

"Which never bothered you before," Buffy muttered.

He gave her a puzzled glance. "Know a lot about me, do you?"

She opened her mouth to say one thing, and heard something completely different - courtesy of the glamour - come out of her mouth.

"People talk."

He grimaced. "Yeah, well. It's probably all true. And no, I won't be making a nuisance of myself. So don't be thinking you need to reach for something pointy on her behalf. I know my place."

Buffy held up her hands as if the thought had never crossed her mind. It really hadn't. But he had no way to know that.

He glanced up at the empty doorway and his expression darkened. "Getting the message loud and clear, here."

She got as far as, "Spike...there are reasons..." before the anti-truth part of the glamour shut her down.

He laughed shortly. Without amusement. "Know what those reasons are, pet. Better than you."

She gave him a sardonic look Mr. Percepto Vamp managed to miss. Of all times for his ability to read her inner Buffy to take a road trip.

"You are worth saving, Spike," she said firmly. Hoping he'd hear echoes of another conversation. Maybe wonder at her conviction.

"Yeah,"he said derisively." I'm a real hero."

Buffy opened her mouth, then shut it, cursing both the thoroughness of Willow's spells and Spike's own rampant insecurity. Between his issues and her issues, they were going to need extra large magazine racks to file them all.

To bad they couldn't recycle.

"Not looking for sympathy, here," Spike said. "Not feeling sorry for myself, either. I just have a habit of falling in love with women who need what I want to give them, but who want what I can't be."

"But you're not feeling sorry for yourself," she said, only a little sarcastically.

He shrugged. "Can't fight destiny, luv." Then he grimaced. "Could go a few rounds with the poncy son-of-bitch who built me this way."

"Angelus?"

He snorted. "Hardly. God, maybe. Or the sodding Powers that Be. Whatever grand-high whatsa-whozit getting his jollies from watching me make a bloody fool of myself."

She arched an eyebrow.

"Right joke isn't it?" he demanded." A demon falling in love with a Slayer? Except here's the funny part. It's not that I'm a demon. It's that I'm me. Not high enough in the instep for Cecily. Not demon enough for Dru. Not hero enough for the Slayer. Gotta tell you, pet. I'm getting damn tired of never being enough."

"Well then maybe," she snapped, "you should have told her you were alive."

He gave her an aggravated glare. "And what bleeding business is it of yours?"

She crossed her arms and gave him a pointed stare. "Excuse me? Who claimed who, live and in Technicolor on the Deviant Channel?"

He narrowed his eyes. "You know, I'm asking myself that same question."

"And stop with the moping," she told him, irritated. "What is it with vampires and the moping? Why not try something a bit more practical? Like, I don't know, _showing up after you've died_."

She hopped off the table and started pacing.

"Look, pet..."

She whirled on him. "Dying is the easy part!"

A strange mixture of emotions crossed his face, starting with confusion and ending with dawning realization. She thought at first Spike's aggravating ability to read between the lines had finally joined the party. He came up off the table in a lithe move that was heartbreakingly familiar and gently took hold of her arms. Pulling her close.

"Who'd you lose, luv?" he asked quietly.

She groaned and let her head fall forward. Her forehead connected with his chest with an irritated thunk, and she felt the jolt travel through his body. Stupid spell. Stupid vampire.

"Someone who said I was his everything," she said accusingly, "then died to prove it."

"Can see how that might be hard to forgive," Spike agreed.

She growled under her breath and felt him smile against her hair.

"Don't look to me for answers, luv," Spike said. "Told her enough times I loved her. Got my bloody soul for her, didn't I? I expect you heard about that."

He didn't seem to want an answer and she didn't protest when his hold shifted, his arms coming around her as much for comfort as to offer it.

"First thing I tried to do, was go back to her. She was proud of me, there at the end. But she didn't love me. If getting my soul and dying to save the world wasn't enough, wasn't anything tumbling off a freighter was going to change."

Buffy frowned. "Spike..."

"Shhh," he said softly. "Not her fault. She's a hero, you see. Most days, I barely know what that means."

Buffy felt her sight blur with tears. Why did being a hero mean that people had to leave? Was it was easier to love a hero from afar? Far far away. A far away city. Another country even.

"But she loved Angel," Spike said quietly. "S'pect you've heard of him as well? He wasn't always the big shiny hero, luv. Even with the soul. Took a bit of polishing, he did. So I thought, if I could learn to be his kind of hero, she might be able to love me too."

She heard him swallow, and felt his chest heave with the force of the air he was trying to breath.

She slid her arms around his waist and tightened her grip.

"Took a bit, but I finally figured it out," he said bitterly. "Found out the doing wasn't the same as the being. She loved what he was, pet. And Angel and me...we weren't ever all that much alike. Then the big show came down and going out in a blaze of glory seemed like the only thing to do. I guess I realized that I loved him, too."

Buffy pulled back slightly, searching his face for the answer to a question she didn't even know how to ask.

He smiled painfully and shrugged." Hard not to, seeing as they are an uncomfortable amount alike." Then he

scowled. "Well, flawed reflection, on his part. But the real deal as far as heroes go. I couldn't let him die alone."

Buffy continued to frown.

Spike gave an odd smile. "None of us were exactly what you'd call normal."

She was startled into a laugh, then closed her eyes and felt the tears seep from beneath her eyelids. He traced them with a gentle finger.

"Not an example I'd recommend using. I haven't even mentioned Darla or Drusilla."

She sighed. "Don't. Not...not at the moment, anyway."

And if he was confused as to why she might want to hear about them in the future, he didn't ask for an explanation. Then he inhaled sharply and pushed himself away from her.

"Buffy," he said. Uneasily.

Buffy turned to see Julia standing motionless in the doorway. Buffy looked past her, frowning slowly when there was a decided lack of red-headed witchiness behind the body-double.

"Where's Willow," she demanded.

Julia gave her a cool look. "Recalled by the Council."

Buffy gaped."But..." she glanced at Spike, who was still staring at Julia, a raw painful hope seething in his eyes.

"His chip was commissioned by Wolfram and Hart," Julia said bluntly, ignoring the too silent vampire." Willow found documents, and some mention of upgrades. The Council wants to be cautious, until we know what this new chip is designed to do."

"What it can do, is get the hell out of his head," Buffy said flatly.

"Giles has already called Colonel Demson,"Julia said, naming the man who had been Maria's contact for the mission to Brazil. "They're trying to track down anyone who might know how to remove it. Demson said it's going to be difficult. The doctors on the project have been unstatistically accident prone over the last couple of years."

Buffy looked at Julia with disbelief. "So what? We just wait?"

This was so not going to happen.

Not again.

Giles was not going to hurt Spike, using her as justification. She didn't even have a plan for what to do next. She'd just assumed she would tell him. Now, the Council had decided he didn't need to know. Or Giles had decided Spike would leave her be, if she couldn't tell him. She could see him thinking Spike would abandon her, to chase the body-double. Or Buffy would abandon him, if he chose Maria.

Buffy didn't ... she wasn't going to think about it like that. He'd been through hell. He needed someone who could make him feel safe. Even if that someone wasn't her.

"Not acceptable," she said flatly.

She wasn't going to think about Willow, either. The fact the Council had called her, and she had gone.

"Buffy?"

He said her name softly, having inched toward Julia while the two slayers hadn't been paying attention. Buffy saw him take an uncertain step back when Julia gave him an icy stare. Buffy glared at her, the magic kicking in as she tried to say something - anything - that would tell him the truth.

"Spike," Julia acknowledged.

Spike stilled. All expression leached slowly from his face, taking hope with it. A flash of something that looked like despair sparked briefly, then it too was gone. For the first time, in ever, his eyes looked truly dead.

"Not exactly the welcome I was expecting, Slayer," he said, the very lack of emotion in his voice setting Buffy's nerve ends screaming.

It wasn't loss.

He wasn't grieving.

He was...gone. Like Julia had killed him. Leaving only dust behind.

She heard something come from her throat, strangled by the magic. A whine. A cry. Spike didn't even turn his head in her direction. He just looked at Julia with flat, fathomless eyes.

Julia glanced at Buffy, her mouth hardening into a rigid line." No? What exactly were you expecting?"

"Oh no," Buffy managed finally, hard and angry. " Noooo. Nope. So not going to happen."

"None of your business, pet," Spike said softly. Way too softly.

"It is if she's pissed at you because of me," Buffy said fiercely. Feeding Julia as much truth as the spell would let her. "You watched him burn in the Hellmouth. You cried for months. Don't you dare blame him now for something that wasn't his fault. It was my choice. Mine."

Julie flicked a glance at her, then a cold one back to Spike. "I watched the tape."

"Then watch it again," Buffy snapped. "Especially the part where the pain-crazed demon chose not to kill me."

"No," Julia said evenly," but he claimed you."

"Hello? Dominance ritual," Buffy stated incredulously. "Sort of the point."

Spike let out a bitter laugh of dawning understanding. "Bloody Council thinks I've got you thralled, pet."

"Oh, please," Buffy said derisively. "As if."

_Dracula_ couldn't maintain a thrall over her. Wasn't much chance a vampire of less than two hundred was going to do it for her. Besides, it wasn't like Spike even had a thrall to do it with. He so would have used it already, if he'd had one. Even if only to prove he didn't need one. Or to do funky things to Xander.

Spike ignored her, focused on Buffy. On the woman he thought was Buffy.

God, this was confusing.

"They're worried ole Spike has a pet all wrapped in ribbons and bows, " Spike said with a strange smile. "Christmas come early for Wolfram and Hart. Isn't that right, Slayer?"

The pressure drop was disturbing. And new.

"I blamed the Watcher for letting Fred die," Spike said. His voice brittle and ice cold. "Figured you didn't know anything about it. And I blamed myself for the fact you didn't come, after I got pinched. Figured you didn't know about that either. Me being right close-mouthed about the fact I was back among the living. Never figured you, though, for the sort to blame the victim."

He stepped away from Julia, deliberately placing himself protectively in front of Buffy. Then he gave Julia a bitter look of betrayal.

"Guess I was wrong."


	10. Chapter 10

Buffy didn't even pause when Julia called after her.

She flung herself after the vampire stalking through the building, racing past startled slayers and disconcerted demons. Julia's voice was getting frantic as Buffy left her behind. It didn't matter. The Council had made its choice. She was making hers.

She caught up to him a few blocks from the Hyperion Hotel. It was still dark enough that his coat almost faded into the shadows, but his hair and pale skin glowed every time he passed under a street-light. She fell into step beside him.

A growl rumbled angrily in the back of his throat.

"Go back where you belong," he snapped.

She didn't even bother to state the obvious.

Every Slayer instinct screamed in panic when he grabbed her by the throat and slammed her into the nearest brick wall. The demon leaned in toward her, snarling low-voiced threats. Yellow eyes burned hot and feral as he glared at her.

It took every ounce of trust she had, not to respond in kind.

She hung limply in his grip, noting almost absently that in spite of the strength in his fingers, she wasn't having any trouble breathing. Trust got a whole lot easier after that. The tension drained from her body even as his growling got worse.

His breath was cool against her face, as he leaned closer. "You do not want to know me."

She tilted her head back as far as his grip would let her and regarded him boldly. "Far as I know, I'm still yours. "

They both knew the demon thought so.

He snarled again, a ripping sound of disgust. And dropped her. She flashed a grin, then lashed out, raking her fingernails hard across his right cheek. She dared to insolence, with a quick lean into his personal space, flicking the wounds with the tip of her tongue.

"Catch me if you can," she said huskily.

Then she ran.

Darting down the nearest alley, up onto a garbage bin and over three balconies until she hit skyline. She flew across the rooftops, leaping the spaces between with reckless abandon. She could feel him, pacing her along the streets below. His every sense tuned to her body.

Her scent.

Her heartbeat.

She had challenged him, and every instinct would demand he hunt her down.

The blow came out of nowhere, knocking her to the rooftop. She rolled to her feet, surprising herself when a fierce sense of glee welled up inside. She could feel it, tingling in her fingers and even her toes. Spike was back. He was alive. He was back and he was alive and he was hers. Even if he didn't know it yet.

She blocked his next attack hard, throwing him over the edge of the building. She used the fire escape to follow him down. He was picking himself off the pavement when she landed. He lunged for her, anger shimmering off his body, and she launched him through a nearby window. A boarded up warehouse of some kind, empty and protected from the rising sun. She followed him in, blinking in the sudden darkness.

Her only warning was a growl.

He slammed into her, shoulder catching her in the ribs, and they rolled across the cracked cement floor together. The ends of his coat wrapped around her legs, briefly binding her to him. Then a row of something huge and metallic stopped their forward momentum and Spike sagged as his head snapped back, cracking into the underside of whatever it was.

She took a moment to confuse the demon by licking the hollow of his throat, then shoved up and away from him and darted further into the shadows. Like a great cat, he sprang to his feet, then leapt from metal structure to metal structure, prowling after her. She teased him, her ponytail flagging insults as she allowed him to get near her, then dashed away.

Still, the predatory grace as he stepped casually along the metal equipment, taunted her with the ease with which he kept up with her. Reminding her of the arrogant, confident vampire she'd first met. The one who had intended to kill her. In this moment, he was strong. Remorseless. Curious.

He had his own appeal, this Spike who didn't love her.

She'd captured his interest with her game. Or more to the point, the demon was intrigued by the lack of screaming. It was hunting, driven by pain and anger, but distracted by the blood running hot through her veins. And by the fact that every time he caught her, she failed to try and kill him.

Demon or not, claim or not, she wasn't prey.

The demon had been captured by his own instinct to chase...and he wasn't unwilling to be there.

When he finally trapped her, he regarded her intently for a moment as she stared boldly back at him, her body pinned between him and a huge metal desk. He sent the task chair flying with a careless shove of his foot, then knocked various pens, pencils, and a blue hard hat to the floor as he pushed her down onto the desk.

When he leaned over her to rumble menacingly into her face, she wasn't oblivious to the irony. The pose reversed the one they had enacted in her mother's house the night he kidnapped Willow. Even then he had disturbed her, the difference in their heights bringing her hips flush against his own as she held him down. He'd known it too, the damn drunken pervert.

At seventeen, she'd hidden her embarrassment.

At twenty-five, she wasn't afraid anymore, of what she wanted.

Since Maria appeared barely seventeen, that might give Buffy something of an edge. Maybe. Then again, maybe not. Spike had always acted like Buffy was the woman in charge. It was the Victorian in him. All those fifteen-year-old heiresses marrying forty-year-old fortune hunters. Or maybe it was the traditionally short life-span of the slayer. Or maybe, maybe all the demon saw was a sexually-active alpha female and that was enough for him.

She actually kinda liked that last one.

Regardless, he'd never had a problem seeing her and Giles...Giles and her...anyway. She didn't think it was 'cause he'd been soulless and evil at the time, either. Just male. And competitive. And...male. So it probably wasn't an edge after all. She knew she'd never had the brash confidence of someone like Faith. She still resented the fact it was Faith - wearing her body - who'd first attracted Spike's attention. Sexually speaking.

Faith's confidence that had lured him in.

Up until Faith got involved, he'd been happy enough just to want to kill her. Although the whole Angel thing was not to be discounted either. Big brother's girl. Woohoo. But Faith...Spike hadn't exactly shoved Slutty Sally off his cot had he? While she rolled around trying to mark new territory.

The big ho.

"You should have run," the demon said, sounding very sure that running had not been what she had been doing.

"I didn't want to," she said flirtatiously.

The smirk on the demon's face widened disconcertingly. "No...no you didn't." He cocked his head. "Too late now," he said cheerfully.

Then his smile faded.

Buffy didn't move when he let her go. He yanked a length of chain loose from the ceiling, testing it briefly in his hands. He eyed her speculatively.

"Do you want me?" the demon asked, as if politely curious.

"Yes," she said.

Her lack of hesitation appeared to disconcert him. He gave her a brooding look.

"We'll see," he told her.

She let him shove her up against one of the metal cylinders, some sort of large drum lying on its side and bolted to the floor. He turned the drum until the surface was free of protrusions, then arched her back against it. She tensed, but didn't protest when he wrapped the center of the chain around her wrists, dropping both ends behind the cylinder and under, until he could attach them to her ankles.

She gasped, caught off guard when he yanked hard, pulling her body into a backwards curve around the metal. There was no give, and no leverage, with her arms pulled up and behind like they were. She slid, as he rotated the cylinder, until the chain caught on something. Her body weight at that angle stretched her arms almost to the point of real pain. Another half a foot of rotation and most of her body weight shifted to rest on the cylinder. Better, except for the fact she was splayed out on top like a sacrifice.

Not a comfortable thought, all of a sudden.

"Now," the demon said, looking at her with anger-filled eyes. "Tell me that you love me."


	11. Chapter 11

"Let me get back to you on that," she told him.

Spike smiled mirthlessly. "All the time in the world, pet." He hooked his fingers in the front of her shirt and ripped it down the center. "It's not worth it if you're easy."

Buffy watched with a hint of regret as her newly acquired bra disappeared somewhere onto the floor below.

"Of course," the demon said conversationally, "she'd say you have a bit of a problem with self-respect." He leaned in to whisper." Paying for another's sins is such a bitch."

"Really?" she asked, somewhat ironically. "I had no idea."

The demon shrugged. "Take William for example. He paid for Lord Underwood's sins."

Buffy inhaled sharply as Spike reached out a hand and drew one forefinger carefully across her arm, the nail slicing her skin and drawing blood. He leaned down and licked his way carefully from one side of the scratch to the other, sucking it clean.

Spike met her startled gaze with hard eyes. "Tell me that you love me."

Wordlessly, she shook her head.

The demon smiled, and started a second line, half an inch from the first.

"Underwood was a nasty bugger," Spike said casually. "Had a taste for low-class women. Had a line of bastards, too. Stretched halfway to Newgate. Left it to Cecily and his lady wife to dole out coins at the back door."

Death from a thousand cuts, she thought vaguely, as he tore a third line through her skin. It was probably supposed to be poetic. Kind of a pointless way to bleed a slayer, though. Sharp as they were, his nails weren't going in very far. The first cut had already sealed itself shut. He could do this all day and the blood loss wouldn't even weaken her.

"She held parties, Cecily did. To raise money. Orphanages. Workhouses. Everyone knew, though, the brats were related. "The demon smirked knowingly. "Plump in the pocket, wee-Willie was. Not his merchant's breeding, or his mother's girlhood friends, that put him on Cecily's guest list."

Spike hesitated as he contemplated the latest cut, looking lost for a moment. "He'd have saved them all for her, pet. Given her control of her portion and marched beside her in those bloody parades."

The demon reached out and ran one forefinger aimlessly around Buffy's breast, circling the nipple as he frowned. "All the things she said she wanted," he said finally. His expression hardened. "Left her a present, I did, before I left London."

The steady rasp of his tongue pulling at her skin, combined with the raw sting, was doing strange things to her body. She told herself she was NOT turned on by being sliced up and fed on, but unfortunately, her body felt differently about the matter. Which was disturbing all on its own.

"Took Angelus with me, to make sure it was done right."

She stared at him, appalled.

The demon snorted at her expression." Nothing we did was worse than the lives they'd already lived. The low-class mistress and her children. The oldest but twelve and already a babe at the breast." The demon paused thoughtfully. "There was some question as to whether the child was Underwood's or not."

Buffy wanted to ask which child, and the fact there was even a question was making her sick.

"You killed them?" Buffy whispered, feeling nauseous.

"Oh not the servants," Spike assured her. "Society would have looked the other way, if it could be said only that a man killed his mistress. Depravity needs to be hidden, luv, for the sake of a good name. Man can't keep a secret, though, not even in his own house, once the servants get hold of it."

A strange gleam entered his eyes as he looked at her, keeping his eyes on hers as he licked the last cut clean.

"Tell me you love me," he whispered.

She stared up at the ceiling. "Did you enjoy yourself?" she asked numbly.

There was a short silence. Then, "Underwood didn't sire any more bastards," Spike said curtly. "I expect his widow enjoyed that."

"But you enjoyed yourself," she said, sickened. "With the mistress, and the daughter, and the other children. You enjoyed yourself."

"Yes," he said flatly.

And licked the blood from another shallow cut.

He'd been right, she realized. She didn't want to know him. She was fairly sure now, that she'd never understood him. She'd feared him. Avoided him. Wanted him - and oh how she'd hated herself for that, even before she died. Strangely, she'd respected him. His...purity of purpose. Vampire, the same way she was the Slayer.

Funny.

She thought perhaps she'd despised him for losing that.

Only... his ability to change, to deal with everything Fate took from him, had mocked her own failure to do so. He'd never been graceful in defeat. He'd bitched and moaned and whined and complained and generally made himself a pain-in-her-ass. But he'd never given up either. After everything he loved, everything that made him what he was, was taken from him, he still found the strength to get up every morning and fight back.

Even if the only victory was survival.

She'd never understood that.

He didn't have a calling. He didn't have a purpose. He seemed to have no ambition to anything beyond blood in the fridge and Passions. She'd have thought him playing a waiting game, but Spike didn't have that sort of patience. He'd gone from being this confident predator to a petty thing that followed her around like a rabid puppy.

An annoying, over-sexed, chain-smoking puppy.

His grief had disgusted her. His desire to be what he'd been. A brutal killer. Someone who liked killing things. Not pain. She'd finally realized that he'd never been in it for the pain. She didn't know what he'd gotten out of it, other than Drusilla. He must have gotten something, because he'd grieved for the loss of himself more than his vampire lover.

And she'd hated him for that too.

Which caused her no end of confusion.

Two years after he'd died, she finally realized he hadn't been wrong, back in Sunnydale. She'd never met the real Spike. Never met him. Never knew him. Never wanted to know. Never wanted to look past the attitude and the lies and the brash exterior to the man underneath. Never thought there was anything to find.

Or any reason to find it.

He wasn't Angel, and she'd never really forgiven him for that.

He was loud, and crude, and obnoxious. He was pushy, and spiteful, and violent. He was older than her grandfather and acted like a child. He smoked too much, and drank too much, and generally couldn't be trusted in polite company. He was everything she didn't like and couldn't imagine sitting down to dinner.

And he was a lie.

She just didn't know which parts yet.

He hadn't killed Cecily. He'd killed the mistress and her ill-bred children. The dregs of society. The people he'd been raised to see as existing only to serve their betters. Angelus, with his lust for control and his lord of the manor attitude - he had enjoyed tormenting that poor woman under the stairs. Spike probably wouldn't have noticed she was there.

Losing his soul, losing the guilt - it loosed a demon on the world. A demon that had still tried to give Cecily what she wanted, the only way it knew how. A gift. An evil, sociopathic gift. Wrapped in blood and tears and the suffering of others. That, from a brand-new fledgling, riding a blood-high and taking lessons from the worst mass murdering vampire in recorded Council history.

When he leaned in to taste her tears, she turned her head and kissed him.

When he jerked away, he stared at her with disbelief.

"What?" she demanded, "I'm not allowed to forgive you?"

"Don't," he warned sharply.

"Don't what?" she arched her eyebrows mockingly. "Don't be better than her? Don't care what happens to you? Don't actually be here?"

His hands slammed into the metal on either side of her head causing it to creak alarmingly. He snarled into her face, low and serious. "You are not better than her," he said flatly. "You will never be better than her. I. Am. Not. Yours."

"But part of you wants to be," she said quietly. "Doesn't it?"

He glared at her with mute fury.

"The part of you that wanted her to tell you that you were finally good enough."

He looked away.

"Come on!" she said, raising her voice. "That's what all this is about isn't it?"

"You'd never understand," he said finally.

"Oh please," she said scathingly. "You're pissed at her. Big surprise. You got your soul. You became everything she said she wanted and where is she now? Not. Here."

"I..."

"You think I don't get that you want to hurt someone? That you want to hurt her?"

He gave her a hunted, guilty look.

"Do it," she dared him. "Go ahead. You want to hurt someone, hurt me. I'm right here. Go on, if you think it'll make you feel better. Act like the monster you think she thinks you are." She yanked on her wrists, setting the chains rattling fiercely.

He was trembling. Anger. Terror. Neither had ever really left him. Not even after he got his soul. No surprise there. Her soul hadn't saved her either. Back when he'd stood between her and those who pulled her from the grave.

"I'm not going anywhere," she said gently.

He clenched his fists, then ripped himself away from her, grabbing something up from a nearby desk and whipping it at the nearest wall. It shattered, raining plastic onto the cement floor.

"God," he burst out. "Do you bloody-minded bints take lessons?"

"Yes," she said promptly. "Somewhere between Make-up 101 and What Not To Do To Your Hair."

He froze. Heeled around to stare at her. Probably for daring to laugh at him, but mostly, she suspected, for refusing to see him as a monster. He inhaled sharply, rather deliberately. Then stood there, looking confused. Finally he shook his head.

"You just don't know when to quit, do you?" he asked, sounding odd.

"Look who's talking," she muttered.

He started to say something, then stopped. Began pacing back and forth, giving her intense searching looks every time he switched directions. The lion in his cage.

She watched him until she got bored. Then she sighed and stared at the ceiling. Counted crossbeams and other weight-bearing things she shouldn't knock down. Contemplated the itch between her shoulder blades and the fact that the stinging had felt a whole lot better when it was accompanied by licking. She gave the chains an experimental tug but he'd known what he was doing. Slayer strength didn't mean much if freeing her wrists detached her feet in the process.

She didn't realize she was squirming, trying to reach the itch, until his hands came down on her shoulders and pinned her to the metal.

"You've got a problem, luv," he said, sounding amused.

Which, given her Twister-approved position, could mean many things.

"What's that?" she asked cautiously.

"Unnaturally high pain threshold," he said succinctly.

She gave him a suspicious look, to which he just shrugged and slapped her on the thigh where her skirt had ridden up.

"Once the fighting starts, you don't feel much, do you?" he asked rhetorically. " Until it wears off. Then you feel too much."

She didn't answer.

He smirked, then ran his finger over the nearly healed scratches on her arms. She shuddered, caught off guard by the unexpected tingle. He looked smug.

"Just enough damage to give the nerves a tickle."

He carefully sliced a new cut into her forearm, watching as barely more than a single drop of blood bled to the surface. He leaned down and captured it with his tongue.

"Slayer healing," he said, sounding even more amused. "We could be here a very, very long time."

Her eyes widened.

"Long enough for me to taste every square inch of your body, pet."

She stared at him, caught by the word picture, wondering if the sudden surge of lust made her a freak. Not that she planned to make it a habit, to go cutting on herself. But she was already here, and it would be hours before the effects from earlier completely wore off. Full-contact with a pissed off vampire brought it out as bad as it ever got.

Hot and cold were about all she'd notice, even if the building didn't fall down. Spike jerked his head back warily at the sudden feral gleam in her eye.

"You think they've got ice?"


	12. Chapter 12

Spike found ice.

He'd also told the absolute truth. They were there a very, very long time. Long enough for the sun to go back down. Buffy held onto his arm as she staggered in the general direction of the Hyperion.

"I could carry you," Spike commented.

"Shut up."

Spike snickered. "What's the matter, slayer? Pain threshold not as high as I thought?"

He curled his tongue against his teeth as she glared. He knew damn well the adrenalin had worn off about an hour ago.

"Ow," she complained, as she tripped over a rock and stumbled.

Buffy didn't feel like protesting when she suddenly found herself airborne and tossed over his shoulder. Buffy of Sunnydale would have protested. She would have ended up sitting on the sidewalk, because her legs didn't work, but she would have protested. Maria of Nowhere Special didn't give a damn.

They were three steps inside the hotel when Spike came to a jarring halt. She planted one hand on the curve of his ass and pushed herself far enough sideways to peer around the edge of his coat.

"Is it too late to run away?" she asked on a sigh.

He didn't get a chance to answer. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she'd known there were slayers. Lots of them, since only fifty or so lived in L.A. and where else would the rest stay? The Council had thought Buffy owned a hotel, back when they were planning this mission. She was also noticing the decided lack of an older Watcher or Boss Slayer. Which meant Giles may have intended to have Buffy take over. Original plan, anyway.

Which meant she didn't have to kill him.

Pain was still an option she was considering.

The result was the pushy someone making her way across the floor. Buffy heard a small puff of laughter from Spike and wanted to cringe as she took in the arrogant stride and the bad-ass attitude. She felt a series of tremors vibrate through Spike's frame as the slayer came to a halt and planted both hands on her hips. Buffy would have whacked him, but her dignity had taken enough damage, being carried in upside down and reeking of sex.

"Well well well, " Spike said, more than a hint of his laughter in his voice. "It's a chip off the old Buffy. Girl's gone all Princess of Power, wouldn't you say, pet?"

This time she did whack him. "Be nice," she hissed.

Spike just snickered and flipped her around to put her gently on her feet. The Queen of the Universe - A.K.A. Clone Kennedy - watched as she straightened her clothes and ignored the warning look Buffy shot her. Buffy resisted the urge to sigh. Her glares just didn't pack the same punch, wearing this seventeen-year-old face. Not with other slayers.

Nor was the Clone Queen the only one giving Buffy sideways looks. A few looked appalled. Although for what had happened to her, or the fact Spike felt free to touch her, she couldn't tell. From the suspicion, the thrall rumor had made the rounds. And most of them had clearly heard about the claim. Which meant Buffy would be hearing about it in approximately...

"She doesn't belong to you, vamp."

Huh...her watch was slow.

Buffy felt the jolt that rocked his body. And when she glanced at him, he was looking almost as surprised by his own response as she was. But he wasn't backing down. From the almost inaudible growl starting in the back of his throat, he was also one wrong move from a whole lotta mayhem.

"Yeah...about that," Buffy broke in hastily, laughing awkwardly as she stepped between Spike and the slayer setting off his demon. "The thing is...I kinda sorta do."

Ohhh...nice death glare.

"And if you'd take it down a notch, we might all survive long enough for me to explain," Buffy said pointedly, losing patience.

The Clone Queen narrowed her eyes.

"Right," Buffy said, "the claim. It's not a thrall. It's..." she trailed off, abruptly unsure how to describe it.

"It's an oath of fealty," Spike growled.

"Fe..." Buffy said, startled. "Whoa. No. Obligation, maybe. Loyalty. But no fealty. No-ho-ho. No way. If you think I'm getting down on one knee and kissing your ring, you better rethink that thought, buster."

Spike swiveled around to face her, and it was the demon glaring out at her. There were enough horrified inhalations from the spectators, Buffy was surprised they didn't vacuum seal the doors and windows. The demon took one step closer, bringing his body flush against her own. She tilted her head and glared up into yellow eyes.

"On your knees sounds just about right, pet," the demon rumbled, a hint of anger in his voice.

"Yeah?" she challenged. "Well ask nice and maybe you'll get lucky. But not 'cause you said so. And way to embarrass me much, by the way."

She poked him in the ribs.

A growl began to rumble, only to cut off when she poked him again. He glared at her for a moment, considering his options, then started to smile. His body language shifted, melting into something far more inviting. An odd clicking purr started in the back of his throat.

She regarded him suspiciously.

"So," the demon suggested, "maybe you want me on my knees instead?"

He was standing way too close to leer appropriately, but his point was not lost as his suggestive gaze dropped below her face, then up again. She swallowed. Tried to remind herself what point she was making. Falling into his eyes. Hot yellow eyes with veins of purest blue breaking on the surface like soap bubbles.

"Is he going to pee in a circle around you or something?" someone asked impatiently.

Spike closed his eyes and shuddered, his face smoothing back into human lines. He took a step away from Buffy and smiled without humor, opening his eyes to meet the Clone Queen's disgusted gaze.

"Or something," Spike agreed. "She's mine. Doesn't matter how. She offered and the demon accepted. That makes her mine. Don't challenge me for her, and we'll get along fine."

Buffy blinked, taken aback by the nature of the accusation. The Queen's mouth opened in protest. Spike raised his hand sharply, cutting her off.

"Don't deny it, pet. All that responsibility is just coming off you in waves. Pisses you off, yeah? Thinking she's one of yours? Well, she isn't. Wouldn't be even if she wasn't mine. But she is, and the demon doesn't compromise. Not on this. So don't. And if she's ever injured, get the hell out of the way. I'll kill anyone standing between us."

There was an appalled silence.

Buffy tilted her head, regarding him curiously. "You know I'm not going to be following your orders, right?"

Spike whirled on her, his coat flaring out around him. "Is this really the best time to be trying to rile the demon?" he demanded, exasperated.

She shrugged, holding up her hands to indicate a lack of weapons. "I'm just saying."

Spike snorted. "Not stupid, pet. Perfectly aware you're a heroically-challenged female with the personality of a scalded cat."

"Hey!"

Spike ignored her protest and stepped past the Clone Queen to saunter over to the front desk.

"So..." he asked the wide-eyed slayer behind the desk. "...which one is our room?"


	13. Chapter 13

Buffy watched, bemused, as Spike made himself annoying at the check-in desk.

At first, she thought he was doing it just to be irritating. It wasn't until he sighed and said,"M'girl's a slayer, pet, not a vampire. She won't survive a jump out the window at that height. Give us something two floors down. And next to the stairwell..." that she realized he was being annoying to a purpose.

And that purpose seemed to be her.

When he finally had a room assignment he was happy with, he took the key from the aggravated slayer, then leaned over and snagged an unopened bag of BBQ chips from where it was tucked out of the way. The slayer blinked for a second, then scowled.

"Hey! That's mine."

Spike smirked. "M'girl's gotta eat, luv. Have the Council take it out of whatever they are reimbursing me for the use of the hotel."

From the questioning look the slayer shot Erica - and the Clone Queen's blank expression - the Council hadn't said anything about reimbursement. A point about which Buffy was mildly annoyed, because even if she had owned the damn hotel it didn't mean they could just assume she'd let them use it for free.

Which she would have, but hello? Rude much?

"I'll need a credit card there pet," Spike said to Erica offhandedly, as he turned away from the desk. "Watcher should be able to set something up."

Erica frowned. "Why?"

Spike shrugged. "Blood. Food. Clothes for my girl."

Erica's frown deepened. "So make a list. We'll take care of anything she needs."

Buffy opened her mouth to point out that the she in question was standing within hearing distance. Human hearing distance no less, fully conscious and capable of understanding the English language. Then Spike growled and lunged in Erica's direction and Buffy had her hands full of angry vampire.

"Whoa! No!" she shouted, while Erica fell back a step looking shocked.

Spike was fully vamped out, his eyes malevolent as he strained against Buffy's hold. The only good thing about it, was that he didn't seem inclined to go through her. Instinct seemed satisfied by his leaning against her grip and growling over her shoulder.

"Did you hear a damn word he said?" Buffy demanded, glaring at Erica.

"Look, you may not mind being the little woman," Erica snapped. "But I don't have to put up with his crap."

"He wasn't trying to rub your face in it, you twit," Buffy stated, irritated." He was just pleased with himself, taking care of me. Jeez. Way to deal with the victimized vampire. God. Idiots!"

Erica gave Spike a disgusted glance and snorted disdainfully.

Buffy felt her face freeze, ice creeping into her blood. Spike's snarling cut off abruptly, and when she looked at him, he was watching her with concern. Confirming her opinion that most of his attack had been instinctive. All bluster and show. She ignored the temptation to whack him on the head with a newspaper and regarded Erica with displeasure.

"Not sure I like being classified as a victim, luv," Spike said, irritated vamp features giving way to irritated human.

"Well, what the hell would you call it?" Buffy demanded.

"Temporarily deprived of freedom," Spike said, flashing his fangs with a growl.

She was about to demand whether being deprived of freedom negated the nightmares when she caught the slightly pleading look in his eyes and the tense way he was holding his body. She started to frown, thinking he was reacting to her, when she saw his eyes flicker sideways, the barest glance, toward the watching slayers. More of whom were gathering in the lobby.

Listening.

There was speculation in their eyes as they looked at him. Speculation, but no real knowledge. They weren't looking at him with pity or horror or the sheer weight of knowing. Buffy wanted to snap at them, to bang their heads against the wall until they stopped to think about what being a pit fighter actually meant. About the fact that, Slayer or not, that place had been built to keep intelligent, aggressive demons under control. Buffy had no illusions about what could have happened.

She'd have gone down fighting.

But...yeah.

Survival could be a real bitch.

Spike had been there for weeks. Maybe months. And killing demons didn't set his new chip off any more than it had set off the old. Something had happened, to get it stuck in a loop like that. Something that had driven him beyond the pain. So she was guessing real traumatized. If it made him feel a little better, gave him some semblance of control, she could survive a little fussing. Maybe even a week or more. Especially if it was accompanied by breakfast in bed.

Naked breakfast in bed.

With a naked vampire delivering it to her.

Spike tilted his head when she sighed. "What are you thinking about, luv?"

"Breakfast in bed," she said wistfully. Thinking she was a horrible person to be having sexual fantasies about him at a time like this.

It was when he paused however, then gave her a startlingly shy smile, that she realized that while she might pick 'em evil, she sure didn't pick 'em dumb. He headed across the lobby, stopping at the weapons' case to toss her a cross-bow, a quiver, and a couple stakes. He grabbed a sword for himself. She gave Erica one last warning glare he didn't see, then followed him wordlessly into the elevator.

The fact he wanted to be at the far end of the hall from the elevator, and next to the fire exit didn't surprise her. Vamps and fire being un-mixy things. Plus, no waiting if they had to fall back to a better location. He grumbled something about the door to their room and she was confused until she remembered the sword. Spike favored his left when using weapons. Which was more than slightly awkward with a door that swung inward and to the left.

"We can turn the door around, swap the hinges to the other side," she said, having watched Xander do exactly that to the bathroom door in Sunnydale. The girls had ripped it off the frame fighting to be the next one in the shower.

He gave her a blank look, then blinked at the door as he realized what she meant.

"Not actually expecting to be attacked here, pet," he said ruefully.

She shrugged. "Better prepared than decapitated."

He grinned.

And ruffled her hair like she was five.

She gaped at him, certain he had not just done that. Equally certain that he had, and she should say something to him about it. Which would have been easier if he hadn't swung the door to the room open, and disappeared inside. She stamped after him, determined to explain that he couldn't just ruffle and run. There were rules about that sort of thing.

She flipped on the light...only to pause at the sight of him sprawled out on the bedspread.

"Get your muddy boots off the bed!" she screeched. Her voice hitting a high note hitherto known only to Dawn.

His eyes popped open and he regarded her with horror.

"Were you born in a barn?" she demanded shrilly.

He started to answer, then regarded her warily as she stomped forward and yanked the offending boots off his feet and flung them in the direction of the door. She kicked her own after them and flopped down beside him. To find him staring down at her with astonishment.

"What?" she demanded, stilled aggravated at the thought of mud in her bed.

And on the carpet. Somehow she didn't think there was a cleaning crew roaming the halls and Spike didn't strike her as the kind of guy who'd appreciate gold stars. Which so wasn't fair, and there was no way she was doing all the housework. Living with one spoiled teenager had been enough. Her eyes widened, and panic clawed at her throat.

She vaulted off the bed with a gasp.

Spike's expression had shifted from wary to the sort of caution people used with crazy people.

"What's wrong pet?"

She started to pace back and forth, thinking how nice it would be to find a cemetery and beat up some vampires. Yeah, that would do it. Where were those stakes Spike gave her?

"Whoa, pet," Spike said, leaping in front of her. "What are you thinking?"

"Vampires," she said shortly." Slaying."

His eyebrows shot up and he cocked his head. "You've been up two days straight, luv. I don't think..."

She glared at him. "Are you trying to tell me how to do my job? Because that damn claim doesn't give you any right to tell me how to do my job. I'm a slayer, okay? I think I know how to do my job. Did it perfectly well down in Brazil without you telling me what to do!"

All of which would have sounded perfectly sane if her voice hadn't gone all Woody Woodpecker by the seventh syllable.

Oh joy. He was speechless. He of the incessantly flapping mouth was doing a goldfish imitation. Rendered mute by her perfectly legitimate, absolutely reasonable, oh-god-what-had-she-done panic. She moaned and flopped back down on the bed and hid her head under the pillow.

Spike didn't move and didn't say a word.

Like Drusilla had ever done housework either.

"Ummm...pet?"

She lifted the pillow. "We're living together," she wailed. Then jammed the pillow back over her head.

It disappeared suddenly and she peered through her hair to see it sailing across the room. Spike wrapped his hands around her upper arms and pulled her upright.

"Enough of these hysterics, luv. Be a good girl and tell Uncle Spike what's wrong."

Buffy wrinkled her nose."Ewww...Spike! That's disgusting."

He blinked at her, wary and puzzled.

"That's a mental image I didn't need," she grumbled. God, there was no way she'd ever do the things she'd done with Spike with her uncle. He wasn't related by blood, but still...ewww. Not to mention some of things they'd done would probably kill him. And she was soooo not going to think about rakish Uncle Giles.

Spike sighed and rolled his eyes.

"I saw that," she muttered.

"Yeah? Well you'll be hearing it too if you don't start making sense, luv,"he said, exasperated. "What's got your knickers in a twist?"

"We're living together," she told him resentfully. Didn't he listen?

"Yeah...got that part. Looking for the rest of the story."

"We're living together!" She threw her arms out expansively, taking in the hotel room. "Our toothbrushes will be sharing bathroom space. Our shoes are snuggling together in the front closet."

Spike glanced at the discarded footwear in question, but wisely didn't comment. This wasn't about facts. Facts were dumb. This was about feelings. Something the emotionally overwrought vampire should have figured out already. And if he had, she was going to kill him for not telling her.

"Have you ever even done housework? Ever?" she demanded.

He shrugged. "How hard can it be?"

She gave him an evil glare. "Say that to the next woman you meet who has teenagers. Go on... I dare you."

"My point, luv, is that it isn't the end of the world. Believe me, I've been there. No one cared if the beds had hospital corners."

"Well what about when it isn't an apocalypse, huh? You think about that?" she said mutinously.

He grinned and threw himself on the bed and pulled himself up until he was sitting with his back to the wall. Then he pulled her up against him. "Well you already know the worst, don't you?"

She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously.

Spike wrapped his arms around her waist. "I'm leaving you for the Slayer," he intoned solemnly.

She blinked.

"She calls, I'm throwing you out like day old dishwater," Spike said expansively. Joking...a little. And not. "So it can't get much worse than that, can it?"

She stared at him, her mouth open. He leaned in and kissed her while she was too stunned to react.

"Doesn't mean we can't have fun in the meantime, does it?" he asked.

And she'd have yelled at him, except the look in his eyes didn't match the tone in his voice.

"Not looking for real, pet," he said gently. "This can't happen if it's real. So we're going to play pretend, yeah? I'm going to pretend the demon isn't a brainless lunatic determined to hang on to you for reasons I'd prefer you didn't think about. You're going to pretend I'm whoever it is you sometimes see when you look at me. And we're both going to pretend this isn't going to hurt like hell when it all comes crashing down."

"Right." She inhaled slowly. "It's not real. I can do not real. " She thought about it for a moment. "Spike? What if we change our minds? What if we decide we want real?"

"Then we're screwed," he said succinctly.

She thought about that for a moment.

Sounded about right.

"You aren't worried?" she asked, trying to keep her tone non-judgmental. Because she understood. She did. She would. She would be so understanding it would make Mother Teresa want to slap her. But a part of her had to ask. "You aren't worried she won't understand?"

He tensed. When she glanced up at him, he looked ... she didn't know how to describe how he looked. Like the wrong word and he would shatter. Like he was tearing down the center and couldn't move for the fear. Not of the pain, but that he would fall apart, and forget how to put himself back together.

"Forget I said that, "she said hurriedly. Terrified he'd heard only an accusation. Or that she'd asked a question he wasn't in any shape to answer. " She'll understand, Spike. After everything that's happened...she'll understand."

He closed his eyes. "You've never met Buffy, have you?" he asked wearily.

There was no way for her to answer that question.

"Why are you here, pet?" he asked suddenly.

"You own the hotel."

He grimaced."Ha, bloody ha. I'm serious. Why this? The claim? Being here with me?"

She gave him as much honesty as she could. "Because you needed someone to make you feel safe."

"Going a bit above and beyond, wouldn't you say?"

She contemplated the question for a moment, suddenly exhausted. "No," she said truthfully, leaning into him. "Maybe I needed someone to make me feel safe, too."

His grip tightened, and for a moment she couldn't breathe. She heard bones crack, and she glanced up in surprise to see the demon looking down at her. He pulled her more securely against his shoulder.

"Then sleep, pet," he said softly, dropping his head to her ear. "And I'll keep the monsters at bay."


	14. Chapter 14

"So you're the skank who's sleeping with my sister's boyfriend."

Dawn had her arms crossed, weight balanced contemptuously on one leg, giving Buffy an insulting once-over that was no less condescending for being transmitted via webcam. Buffy gazed at the image on the TV hooked to the computer and resisted the urge to grin.

"That would be me," Buffy said agreeably, noting that Dawn's eyes widened slightly when Buffy didn't deny the definition of Spike as her boyfriend.

Surreal that, Spike as her boyfriend.

Luckily, it wasn't real.

If it was real, she'd have to cringe every time he opened his mouth. Every time he said something crude or not fit for polite company. Every time people looked at her and judged her, not for the company she was keeping, but for the fact he wasn't good enough for the person the Slayer was supposed to be.

The last time she went against public opinion on that issue, she got kicked out of her life. Her friends. Her family. Her job. Her house. Her life. Because apparently when a monster fought for his soul, to become something better, refusing to kill him somehow meant her judgment was flawed.

Apparently, SHE deserved better.

If it was real, she'd have to justify the time she spent with him. Time spent holding him when the nightmares came. Time the Council would have said was better spent on things better suited to the value of her time. Things better suited to the consequence of the Slayer than one aggravating vampire who refused to be broken.

And if it was real, that first morning would have killed her. When she woke in his arms and her first morning of living with someone wasn't with Angel or Riley or anyone that anyone who was anyone would deem...worthy. It was Spike. Spike who couldn't find the damn remote right where he left it. Spike who went hunting for tampons and she couldn't leave the room because she only had one pair of clean pants. And Spike was who she yelled at when he drank the last of the orange juice and put the empty carton back in the fridge.

And if it was real, she'd have to wonder about tomorrow.

She'd have to decide if she liked him enough to keep him, or if she had simply needed him, once upon a time. She'd have to know, so she didn't hurt him worse than she already had. And she'd have to defend - to herself and others - not just his existence, but her feelings for him. Her trust. Her judgment.

She'd have to ask if he was worth the price.

But it wasn't.

Wasn't real.

And she didn't want it to be.

"She's going to want him back you know, when she gets her head out of her ass."

Buffy frowned slightly. Except for Spike, all of the people most up-to-date on the Buffy quirks and foibles collection had been included when the anti-truth spell had been cast. Presto chango...

... magic by Willow, conversation by Salvador Dali.

Which forced them to get creative about their real meanings. So did this mean that Dawn wanted to know if Buffy planned to keep Spike, or was she warning Buffy that the Council didn't plan to let her?

Buffy nodded carefully. "I'll keep that in mind."

Dawn waited a beat, but there was nothing Dawn could say that she hadn't already said by calling in the first place.

"Is Spike there?" Dawn asked finally.

Spike, newly bleached back to radioactive blond, had been leaning with one hip against the desk and watching the floor. He straightened abruptly when he heard his name, glancing first at Dawn, then Buffy, looking awkward.

"Oh. Right. Sorry about that," he said, his body language a combination of confused and embarrassed. "I'll just give you two birds some privacy then shall I?"

Dawn snorted. "Don't be stupid, Spike. I called to talk to you."

Spike frowned, gaze swinging back and forth between Buffy and the monitor. Buffy gave him a thoughtful look as he settled slowly into the office chair. Then she eased out of the room, leaving Spike alone for the coming lecture.

And to give herself some space to think.

This wasn't the first time over the last three weeks he occasionally acted like he knew who she was. Or thought he knew. And it was confusing the hell out of her, because it wasn't always Spike, and he wasn't just falling back into old habits.

It was the demon.

And they had never really had habits to fall back on.

Unlike Sunnydale where she rarely saw his other face, now she saw it all the time. Curled on the sofa watching a movie together. When he held her at night. Several times a night she would look up and find him watching her. Just...watching. Yellow eyes amused as she yanked the battery from the smoke detector. Again. Or something that looked like smug pleasure as she read a trashy novel on the bed.

Hot with arousal when he caught her around the waist and hauled her to the floor.

And that was beginning to bother her.

Not the sex. Frankly, she was astonished he even wanted to have sex. But she didn't get the feeling he felt he had anything to prove. He simply seemed to enjoy every chance he could get, to get close to her. He'd rub against her when he passed her coming out of the bathroom, or lean against her back, his chin on her shoulder as she cooked. Then he'd curl around her at night as though she planned to run away.

And his eyes were never blue when he did it.

She stared silently at the closed office door and wondered if he had been this schizophrenic back in Sunnydale. Maybe she'd just never noticed. He'd always seemed so...Spike. Who he was, what he was, and who he used to be had never seemed to be in conflict. Even after the soul - for which much confusion was to be expected - he'd never seemed as torn as Angel.

Now she wasn't so sure.

The Clone Queen - Erica, as she was known to the others - looked up from her seat at the front desk to give Buffy a resentful look.

"Big important conversation all done?" she asked sarcastically.

Buffy shrugged, resisting the urge to roll her eyes.

"Does that mean I can have my office back?" Erica demanded.

"It means..." Buffy started, then winced as a particularly shrill note pierced the air. "It means be grateful we don't have vamp hearing," she mumbled.

Erica grimaced.

Buffy eyed the top of the other slayer's head, debating with herself for a moment, then dropped into one of the chair-stools someone had placed in front of the desk. Bringing herself down to the other woman's level, so to speak.

"I got an email from Colonel Demson this morning," Buffy said casually. "He's bringing a couple teams to train at the local base next week. Some weapons, some hand-to-hand. Mostly demon hunting, urban environment."

Erica tensed. "So I guess that means you're still off the roster, huh?"

Buffy refused to feel guilty.

It wasn't her fault Giles wouldn't let Erica put her on active patrol.

Nor was it her fault that the better part of three hundred slayers were stuck in L.A. babysitting the patrons stuffed a dozen to a room on the upper floor. In truth, the slayers were doing a lot of good while they were stuck here. The demon problem created by Angel's assault on Wolfram and Hart to name but one. But the Council was dragging its ass on how they wanted to handle the Pit Fighter situation.

The identities of the patrons had shocked a few people.

Not that Buffy thought that should make a difference. She remained in favor of dropping them head-first into a demon dimension. Which, come to think of it, might be why the Council was still hemming the haw. Half the patrons were captains of industry. People were going to notice if the ship of state sprang a few leaks.

"Demson wants to know if you want to send in a team of slayers to train with them."

Erica's head shot up. "Me?" she asked, surprised.

"Mmmm..." Buffy hummed in agreement.

Interest lit Erica's eyes.

"You should go," Buffy said.

Erica's smile vanished.

"It'll be a good bonding opportunity for you and your squad leaders," Buffy continued, as if she hadn't seen the other's response. "Let you get a feel for their strengths and weaknesses in the field."

"And what?" Erica demanded sarcastically, "Leave you here in charge?"

Buffy forced herself to shrug casually. "Nah...Demson wants to see what a vampire can really do. Spike and I volunteered."

And that had been a loud and interesting conversation.

Especially when she told him she didn't want him to go.

Erica's eyes flicked toward the closed office door, then back. Her mouth opened as if she were about to ask something, then she sighed and closed it again. She stared down at her half-completed roster, looking disturbed. Before Buffy could pry further, the office door opened and Spike stalked out, looking pleased.

"Niblet's right put out I didn't tell her I was alive," he informed her happily.

"Miss Summers can get a bit shrill," Buffy agreed.

Spike winced and massaged his ears. "No joke there, pet." Then he glanced at Erica, leaning forward slightly to peer at the roster.

"You pencil us in, luv?" he asked hopefully. "Because you know, sex with me hasn't exactly traumatized a slayer yet."

Buffy groaned.

No...no it hadn't.

It was the conversation afterwards.

She whacked him on the arm. "Weren't Victorians supposed to be all repressed and stuff?"

"Only if you had pockets to let," Spike said absently, still trying to peer at the roster. "The rest died of syphilis."

Buffy crossed her arms. "And I suppose you know this how?"

Spike smirked at her. "Ate enough of them, didn't I"

Buffy raised an eyebrow and Spike sauntered away from the desk and threw himself onto one of the sofa chairs. He sprawled out in black-clad decadence. Like a big cat.

" 'Sides," he said, "how would I know any different? As Head Watcher would have it, I was raised in a hell and hawked ha'penny whores for a living."

"Yes, well," Buffy said acidly, "I don't know where he'd have got that impression."

Spike mimed being staked in the heart. All the while his eyes danced with amusement.

"You were obscenely rich, weren't you?" Buffy grumbled.

Spike held out a hand, palm down and turned it side to side.

She wasn't going to ask. She wasn't going to ask. She wasn't.... "Brothels?" she demanded.

"Which do you mean, pet? Did I own them...?" Spike asked breezily. "Or did I frequent them?"

Buffy's eyes narrowed.

Spike smiled. "William was a poncy git," was all he said.

"That's not an answer," Buffy told him aggrieved. She looked at Erica. "Tell him that's not an answer."

Erica just gave both of them a disgusted look and shook her head.

"Come on, pet," Spike said, climbing to his feet. "Let's go kill things. Work on any residual trauma."

She turned to follow him as he headed for the door. "The only thing traumatizing me is my acute humiliation and the fact you keep leaving your towels on the bathroom floor. There's a laundry basket for a reason, Spike."

"Nag, nag. What is it with you slayers? Don't joke about eating people, Spike. Don't talk about sex, Spike. We don't have servants, Spike. What's next? You'll tie a bib around my neck and warn me not to dribble?"

"Ohh yes! Let's talk about killing people in front of fifty slayers who dust your kind for doing just that. Brilliant plan, Spike. And the sex thing? You ever want to have sex with me again, you will not discuss it in front of people."

"I don't see the bleeding problem. Walls are bloody thin around here, pet."

"What? Ewww...Spike, I did not need that visual. Wait...are you listening to the others when they...?"

"When they what, pet?"

Buffy glared as he smiled innocently, and shoved him outside.

"Let's go kill things," she muttered.


End file.
